The 49ers were a field goal from taking the Lombardi Trophy back to San Francisco. Headed into the fall, how close is this team from taking it all?
One NFL analytics expert projects that the 49ers will be the top seed in the NFC playoffs once the regular season is over seven months from now.
Cynthia Frelund, an analytics expert with NFL Network, broke down projected win totals for all 32 teams. She’s predicting the 49ers will win 11.2 games this season. She used stats, history and trends — lots of them — for her projections. No guessing here.
“Using the projected 53-man rosters as of May 14, I ran 150,000 simulations for all 272 regular-season games,” she wrote.
She also noted “remember, these simulations account for many contextualized data points that have been proven to correlate to wins and losses based on historical football games that were actually played.”
But the 49ers are the pick of most everyone to be the top team in the NFC if not the most superior squad in the NFL. Brock Purdy is back for his third season. He went from participant in the NFC title game as a rookie to winning the contest as a second-year starter. The next step is winning the Super Bowl, right? And the offense still features Christian McCaffrey, the running back who is the reigning NFL offensive player of the year. He still has Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel as receivers.
Plus, the 49ers didn’t lose anyone significant off their roster. In free agency, they stocked their defense, especially on the defensive line.
San Francisco 49ers odds for 2024 season
- Win Total: under 11.5 (-120)
- Make Playoffs: -500
- Win Division: -225
- Win Conference: +225
- Win Super Bowl: +575
Frelund wrote of the 49ers:
“No surprise here, with the reigning NFC champions topping this list. The 49ers are returning a large percentage of their offensive players — and they added surplus value to the receiving corps in first-round pick Ricky Pearsall. Keep hating on Brock Purdy if you must, but the man just led the league in yards per attempt (9.6), passer rating (113.0), QBR (72.8) and expected points added (115.6, per Next Gen Stats). Defensively, the Niners reshuffled the deck up front around Nick Bosa and Javon Hargrave, while spending two of their top four draft picks on defensive backs.
“One tricky part of the schedule: Following the Week 9 bye, San Francisco faces three road tilts against 2023 Divisional Round teams (Tampa Bay, Green Bay and Buffalo) in a four-game span, with the lone home contest coming against rival Seattle.”
Frelund placed the 49ers just ahead of the Eagles, who she forecast to win 11.1. Philadelphia will be a huge story line as NFL fans watch to see if they have a similar late-season fade as 2023. The Lions are third with 10.6 wins. The Falcons are a surprise fourth at 9.9 victories. Atlanta gets credit for signing Kirk Cousins at quarterback.
The final three playoff teams predicted in this early look at 2024 are the Packers at 9.8, Rams at 9.2 and the Cowboys at 9.1.
You can check out all of Frelund’s predictions here. And check out On3.com’s NFL coverage here.
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