[quote]farmerson12 wrote:
DB, you think the 49ers will have a worse or better record this season?
Jacksonville picked up Aaron Rodgers brother, Jordan Rodgers. I wonder if we will see the next Peyton/Eli duo. I doubt it but i will be hoping.[/quote]
I think they’ll have a better record. Their schedule is actually easier this year than it was last year and I think they’ll benefit from a deeper defensive line and Kaepernick under center for the whole year.
West Coast teams typically struggle when playing on the road and at what would be 10am on the West Coast. The Niners only have two games on the road that start at 10am PST. One in Tampa Bay, which is probably the easiest of the 10am games they’ve played recently (other than when they annihilated the Jets early last year) and the other one is against Jacksonville. But the Jacksonville game is in London and they have a bye the following week. That should be a cakewalk for them.
Other than that, they really only have three or four truly tough road games this year: at NO, at Seattle (which could be a lot less tough if Lynch is out), at St. Louis (I’m not sure if this is really that tough of a game for them, last year notwithstanding. I’m not sold on the Rams until Bradford proves he’s the real deal), and at Washington in a primetime game.
The toughest non-divisional foes they face this year are: Houston, Green Bay, Indianapolis and Atlanta. And they get all four of them at the 'Stick.
For a team in the toughest division in the league and coming off a Super Bowl appearance, this is about as easy a schedule as they could expect. I think they’ll go 13-3, maybe even 14-2. This is assuming that Eric Reid can handle the free safety position and Donte Whitner doesn’t completely collapse at strong safety like he did in the Super Bowl. If they get good play in the secondary and along the defensive line, stay relatively healthy and catch a break or two, I don’t see why they can’t potentially run the table or finish 15-1.
I’m serious about that. All signs are that Lynch will be out in Week 2 when they travel to Seattle, which will be their toughest game of the year. If they pull that out, I really don’t see anyone on the schedule who is a big threat to them at all. They’ve already shown they can handle Green Bay, Indy and Houston are fucking frauds who will be exposed in Candlestick, St. Louis just played the games of their lives last year against the Niners and still only managed a tie and a 3-pt win, Atlanta coming to Candlestick in the end of December could really ugly for a prototypically soft dome team, the Niners already proved they can go into the SuperDome and beat NO, even when they didn’t really play all that well, and I don’t think the Jaguars, Titans, Panthers, Cardinals, Buccaneers or even the Redskins are much of a match for them. I thought that Washington played a little over their heads at times last year and I expect them to regress.
The Niners faced quite a bit of adversity last year and still managed to make it to the Super Bowl. They had a big QB controversy midseason, they suffered injuries to three key players on offense, they got walloped in Seattle, they didn’t really click on offense for most of the year and they still were the best team in the NFC. If things go better for them from an adversity standpoint the rest of the league better watch out.
On top of that, they had arguably the best draft of any team in the NFL last week. I don’t expect Lattimore to play, but Carradine is a big addition to their defensive line, Vance MacDonald has the makings of another Gronkowski-type TE, their WR, Quinton Patton, has a really good shot at stepping right in as their 3rd WR behind Crabtree and Boldin, and they added much-needed depth with Lemonier rushing off the edge with legit 4.5 speed and a versatile 300lber in Quinton Dial. The most physically-talented team in the league just got even more talented.
So, I’d say 13-3 with the serious potential to go 15-1.