Why the 49ers' 'easy' schedule wasn't so easy

In his recent article on how the San Francisco 49ers can mirror the roster construction of the Los Angeles Rams (a good read), Bob Heyrman says at one point, "Now, the 49ers were one win away from becoming the top seed of the NFC last season, but remember, they didn't play a first-place schedule; they played a fourth-place schedule."

While he is correct, one thing that became clear as the season progressed was how misleading that statistic was. The strength of schedule is determined by the combined winning percentage of the previous year of the assigned opponents.

By the end of October, it became apparent that those teams had made significant improvements during the offseason.

The Seattle Seahawks, who had finished 2024 with a very solid 10-7 record and been projected to be third in the division with a healthy 49ers squad, were suddenly the cream of the NFC West (and the 49ers remained injured) and went on to win the Super Bowl.

The teams that made the Niners' schedule look so easy were the Jacksonville Jaguars, Indianapolis Colts, Cleveland Browns, New York Giants, Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints, and Chicago Bears. Some of those teams were poor, but let's look at some of the others.

In 2024, the Bears finished 5-12. Their hopes for the next season revolved around the improvement of rookie quarterback Caleb Williams and the impact of new head coach Ben Johnson, the offensive mastermind of the Detroit Lions' offense the past several years.

Both delivered. The Bears finished 11-6, comfortably winning the NFC North. (Fans will remember the nailbiter the 49ers won on the last play of the game.) And the Bears won their first playoff game. They were not an easy opponent.

Likewise, a 4-13 Jaguars squad turned in a 13-4 season and earned the AFC South title.

In the NFC South, the pitiful 5-12 Panthers flipped the switch and won the division. While they did so with an 8-9 record, quarterback Bryce Young suddenly looked like the number one pick in the draft that fans expected, and Carolina was suddenly one of the toughest outs in the conference. (Just ask the Rams, who lost to them late in the season, and the Bucs, who had won the division the year before and went down to them twice.)

Overall, the 49ers played half their season against teams with a combined .706 winning percentage. To put that into perspective, only four teams in the league had a better winning percentage than that, and only four others (the 49ers, one of them) matched it.

When looking at the real numbers, not the projected ones from the previous season, it's clear that San Francisco played a relatively difficult schedule. And to come that close to the number one seed was shocking, given all the injured players they were without.

That said, Heyrman is right that the Niners still have a lot of work to do this offseason. As the adage goes, "If you aren't getting better, you're getting worse," and the Seahawks got better last year, and the 49ers have to catch them (and the Rams).

Getting the injured players back will help, but that won't improve San Francisco above their projected standard of play when they kicked off the season last year.

General manager John Lynch does not have a lot of draft picks to play with this year (only seven), but he does have cap space—currently the 11th most in the league. But in my opinion, the splash play is not the way to go. One injury and you have a huge part of your salary cap on crutches.

The better way is to upgrade several positions with mid-range players who perform at a high level. That might be, for instance, guard Wyatt Teller and edge rusher Cam Jordan, rather than taking a big swing for Trey Hendrickson. It's upgrading the roster at two positions rather than one.

Then, use the draft to upgrade at several. Many, including myself, have noted that Lynch has not done well with his early picks, but he has been exceptional with the later ones. The 49ers have four on day three of the draft. If he lands a single starter on each day of the draft, the Niners should be just fine.