The 49ers’ 2020 offseason put them in a position to effectively replicate the roster that took them to a 13-3 record and a trip Super Bowl LIV last season. Their maneuvering was enough to have them running away with the NFC West despite finishing a game worse than they did last year in the USA TODAY pre-season predictions.
Here’s what the NFC West standings look like in the projections:
49ers, 12-4
Seahawks, 9-7
Cardinals, 7-9
Rams, 6-10
This would certainly make the 49ers and Seahawks’ Week 17 showdown much more anti-climactic than it was a year ago. In fact, if this is how the season shakes out, it’d be an awfully disappointing year in an NFC West that should be one of the best divisions in football.
Where things get interesting is looking across the rest of the postseason picture. The 49ers would wind up as the No. 2 seed behind the 12-4 Saints since New Orleans in this situation knocked off the 49ers in the Superdome.
Green Bay and Dallas are the other two division winners at 10-6, so the 49ers’ matchups against both of those clubs won’t come into play in a tie-break scenario.
In prior years, landing the No. 2 seed is a gift since it earns a first-round bye and home-field advantage in the divisional round. That won’t be the case this season since a third wild card team enters the picture so the first-round bye belongs only to the No. 1 seed. Not only would
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