NFL schedule release could give the 49ers the chance to do something they've never done under Kyle Shanahan

The San Francisco 49ers will learn their schedule for the 2024 NFL Season on Wednesday.

They will hope it gives them something they've not had since the pandemic season of 2020, a Week 1 game at home.

San Francisco's last Week 1 home opener was one played without fans and saw them suffer defeat to the Arizona Cardinals. In fact, five of their last six openers have been on the road, with four of them (2019 at Tampa Bay, 2021 at Detroit, 2022 at Chicago and 2023 at Pittsburgh) giving the Niners long trips across the country to start the season.

It hasn't prevented the 49ers from being largely successful to start their seasons under Kyle Shanahan, with San Francisco's only defeats in openers on the road under Shanahan coming in 2018 against the Minnesota Vikings and in monsoon conditions in Chicago in a 2022 loss to the Bears. Last season, the 49ers crushed the Steelers 30-7.

But the 49ers would surely be grateful to not have to make such a trip to start the season, and a potential Week 1 home game would offer them the opportunity to do something they have never done under Shanahan.

Their only other such game came in Shanahan's first season in 2017 and saw the Niners comfortably beaten by the Carolina Panthers.

As such, the Niners could this year get the chance to win a Week 1 home game for the first time under Shanahan's leadership.

Prior to his arrival, the 49ers won successive Week 1 home openers in 2015 and 2016, routing the Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Rams on Monday Night Football.

Those seasons marked dark days for the 49ers in the initial post-Jim Harbaugh years. The 49ers' fortunes have improved considerably under Shanahan, but a home Week 1 game would give the 49ers head coach a chance to achieve a long overdue first.