Don’t let the record fool you, the 49ers are good

Despite a middling record, the Niners check the boxes of a good team

Coming into this Sunday’s matchup with the Green Bay Packers, the San Francisco 49ers technically sit at the very bottom of the crowded NFC West with a 5-5 record, fresh off a loss to the division-rival Seattle Seahawks. According to the NFL’s playoff probability numbers, the 49ers sit at just 31%, largely the product of a schedule that ranks the third most difficult in the NFL by DVOA. This week isn’t quite an elimination game for the 49ers, as even with a loss, they’ll have about an 18% chance to still make the playoffs, but a win gets them back to a coin-flip. This is about as high leverage as a mid-November game can get for a team.

While the Niners sit on the edge of a Super Bowl hangover, banged up, and stuck with a .500 record, the underlying numbers say that this team is still quite dangerous, and a more than formidable foe for the Packers this weekend. Despite missing wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk for the past month or so, the Niners still rank fifth in EPA-per-dropback, and their running game, almost entirely without Christian McCaffrey, ranks seventh in EPA-per-rush. While the old stars of the show, Aiyuk, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, and Christian McCaffrey have dealt with injuries and age to varying extents, the role players have replaced quite a bit of the production. The 49ers leading receiver is Jauan Jennings, who is posting +12.7% catch-rate-over-expected and leads the team with +36.1 receiving EPA. While Jennings has been the breakout player for the Niners offense, veteran tight end George Kittle has still been his same productive self. His ability after the catch remains a massive problem for defenses, as only the Packers’ Tucker Kraft has more yards-after-carry-over-expected amongst tight ends this season.

While the passing game still has weapons, what haunts Packers fans is the Niners running through them without issue for, frankly, over a decade now. Christian McCaffrey does not look like his normal self coming back from an Achilles issue, but backup Jordan Mason has been one of the most productive backs in the league, ranking fourth in rushing-yards-over-expected-per-carry at +1.5. To make matters worse, the 49ers offensive line has been quite good this year, ranking in the top ten of both pass blocking and run blocking from Ben Baldwin’s composite scores.

On the other side of the ball, so much of how they’re interpreted is whether or not star defensive end Nick Bosa plays. Bosa ranks fourth in pressures amongst EDGE players in the league this year with 48, but is dealing with an oblique injury and as of writing, appears to be headed to a questionable designation for the game. Without Bosa, the Niners front is a lot less scary, as more attention can then be paid to his battery mate, Leonard Floyd.

The Niners pass defense ranks as one of the better ones in the league, ranking 8th in EPA-per-dropback and third in DVOA. A lot of this can be attributed to Bosa and Floyd, but cornerback Charvarius Ward is a rising star and has returned to practice after missing the past couple of weeks. And while one linebacker spot has been an absolute disaster this season, with D’Vondre Campbell grading out as one of the worst starters at the position in the sport, the other is occupied by perhaps the best one in the league in Fred Warner.

Not that any Packers fan would ever look past the 49ers given the last decade of history between the two teams, but the record is lying here. This is a very talented team that has had almost everything go wrong for them so far. They rank 6th in total DVOA, fifth in offense and sixth in defense. Their Achilles heel has been a horrendous special teams, which ranks 31st, which is poor across almost every unit. It would perhaps be a bit ironic if special teams were the thing that swung this game for Green Bay, making their eventual playoff birth quite likely while almost putting the final nail in the 2024 49ers’ coffin. But this Packers team will have to execute a lot in the other two phases to make that happen. This Niners team is a lot better than their record.