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The 49ers’ loss to the Cowboys in Week 15 was supposed to come with a silver lining that it helped their draft positioning. That didn’t turn out to be the case once the dust settled on Week 15. San Francisco still sits at No. 12 in the 2021 NFL draft.
A big problem for the 49ers is the amount of teams that share a record with them, and the tiebreaker that separates them.
San Francisco is one of six teams at 5-9 after Week 15. Four teams have four wins, and two teams have six. There’s a chance for the 49ers to skyrocket up the board or even, in a disaster scenario from a draft perspective, fall a couple more spots.
The first tiebreaker for draft picks is strength of schedule. A team that goes 5-11, for example, with a .400 strength of schedule is presumably “worse” than a team that goes 5-11 with a .500 strength of schedule. Therefore, the lower SOS gets the better draft pick.
The 49ers have a .547 SOS after 14 games thanks in part to a stellar NFC West that may carry three playoff teams. Detroit is one spot ahead of San Francisco with a strength of schedule that sits at just .509.
It’s unlikely the tiebreaker is going to help San Francisco climb. They need teams ahead of them to win. The Chargers won in Week 15 to move to 5-9 for the year. So did the Cowboys, but every other team within range of the 49ers lost, including the Broncos, Lions, Giants, Eagles, Texans, Falcons and Panthers.
The loss to Dallas was bad, and it effectively eliminated San Francisco from playoff contention. It might’ve been a worse week for the 49ers’ draft pick though, which will now need a small miracle to climb well into the top-10 range where they’ll have a ton of flexibility to fix a roster that’ll surely have flaws.
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