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49ers are Most-Likely Team to Go from Worst to First in Their Division

Under head coach Kyle Shanahan, the 49ers generally go to the NFC Championship or finish last in their division. There isn't much in between.
Grant Cohn|
Jun 11, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa (97) participates in a pass rush drill during a team OTA at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
Jun 11, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa (97) participates in a pass rush drill during a team OTA at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

Under head coach Kyle Shanahan, the 49ers generally go to the NFC Championship or finish last in their division. There isn't much in between.

Last season, they finished dead last in the NFC West. The season before, they went to the Super Bowl and lost. That's why this season, so many people expect the 49ers to bounce back. In fact, Fox Sports says that the 49ers have the best chance to go from worst to first in their division of all the teams that finished last in 2024.

"This was a decently easy call when it comes down to likelihood, though I do think the Rams are going to be a hard team to overcome for the top spot in the NFC West," writes Fox Sports' Carmen Vitali. "That being said, last year was an uncharacteristically bad year for the Niners and I don’t expect that to continue. They still have one of the better rosters in the division, and they just paid quarterback Brock Purdy.

"If San Francisco gets running back Christian McCaffrey back and healthy, all bets are off as to who wins this division. That is an 'if,' though. The Niners snagged a couple of defensive linemen with their first two picks in the draft to make up for their losses there, too."

Unfortunately for the 49ers, both of those defensive linemen -- Mykel Williams and Alfred Collins -- missed minicamp with leg injuries. And banking on a 29-year-old running back coming off bilateral Achilles tendonitis and a torn PCL to carry the offense like he did when he was 27 seems unrealistic.

But to be fair, the Rams have a much tougher schedule, plus they need Matthew Stafford and Davante Adams to stay healthy all season, and they're older players. So the 49ers certainly have a legitimate chance to go from worst to first. But so do the Chicago Bears. It will be interesting to see which team is better this year. They will face each other in Week in Week 17 at Levi's Stadium.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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