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Are the 49ers Poised to Return to the Playoffs in 2025?

The 49ers have the easiest schedule in the league next season according to NFL.com.
Grant Cohn|
49ers Christian McCaffrey carries the ball for several yards during first half action of their home game against the San Francisco 49ers in Orchard Park on Dec. 1, 2024.
49ers Christian McCaffrey carries the ball for several yards during first half action of their home game against the San Francisco 49ers in Orchard Park on Dec. 1, 2024. | Tina MacIntyre-Yee/Democrat and Chronicle / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers have the easiest schedule in the league next season according to NFL.com.

So despite finishing last in the NFC West this past season and then losing a ton of talent in free agency, NFL.com believes the 49ers are poised to return to the playoffs.

"Last season was no fun for the 49ers or their fans, but the stay at the bottom of the division might not be long," writes NFL.com's Eric Edholm. "Assuming San Francisco has patched enough holes on the roster and doesn’t suffer the kind of unfortunate injury luck it did a year ago, this team is poised to return to the playoffs.

"Start with this: Who is the best opponent they face? The three division opponents will be tough, and road games against the Buccaneers and Texans also dot the schedule, but I don’t believe the 49ers will be facing many Super Bowl contenders this year."

I have to disagree with Edholm's analysis.

The 49ers were 1-5 against NFC West opponents last season and all of those teams improved this offseason.

In addition, the 49ers didn't necessarily have "unfortunate injury luck" last season. Brandon Aiyuk's knee injury certainly was unfortunate. But the 49ers also had a 36-year-old left tackle who missed seven games and a 28-year-old running back who missed 13 games after being fed the ball 798 times in 2022 and 2023.

At this point in their careers, it seems like a stretch to expect either of them to bounce back and be durable All Pros. The 49ers have to take what they can get from those two. Which means the 49ers are at the mercy of two of their most fragile players. Plus they have no idea when Aiyuk will return or how good he'll be when he gets back.

So no, I don't think the 49ers are poised to return to the playoffs.

Maybe next year.

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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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