There may not be a higher-variance team in the NFL than the 49ers going into this season. They’re coming off a trip to the NFC championship game and return virtually all of their top players from last year’s squad. A dramatic change with first-time starter Trey Lance taking over under center, and some question marks on the offensive line offer a high ceiling and low floor for the 49ers.
Predicting how they’ll finish requires a ton of conjecture since Lance is ostensibly a complete unknown at the most important position on the field. We gave it a crack in our way-too-early predictions after the schedule came out. Now NFL Media’s Adam Rank is giving it a try. Rank famously guessed San Francisco would go 3-13 in 2019 when they wound up going to the Super Bowl.
This year essentially any guess with the 49ers is valid, and a person’s prediction will say a lot about how much faith they have in Lance and San Francisco’s coaching staff.
Rank is high on neither and believes the 49ers will be worse in 2022. Here are his guesses, and some thoughts on how this might come true: