It’s been a busy first month of the season for the San Francisco 49ers. They’ve had to deal with a holdout from a star receiver, navigate an injury to their All-Pro running back, and get creative due to an in-game kicker injury.
They opened the season as the undercard in Aaron Rodgers’ return to action and have more divisional losses over the past three weeks than they had, in total, over the previous two years.
“You are what your record says you are.”
The famous Bill Parcells quote always comes up when discussing expected totals (xWins+) and I don’t have a problem with it. My issue is with the football fans who understand that quote as “you will be what your record says you are.”
There’s no denying that this has been an odd start to the season for the 49ers. The NFL is a game of inches, and while not every result is going to mirror what “should” have happened, I wanted to dive into our xWins+ model to see how to view this team moving forward.
San Francisco 49ers: A Great 2-3 Team or an Overvalued Team This Preseason?
San Francisco and Kansas City played in the final game of last season and both teams entered 2024 with expectations to again challenge for a Lombardi Trophy. The undefeated Chiefs were the focal point last week (PFN Metrics and Insights: Are the 2024 Kansas City Chiefs Destined To Be the 2023 Philadelphia Eagles?), and though their records look drastically different up to this point, should they be?
2024 San Francisco 49ers
- Week 1 vs. NYJ: 92% win expectancy (32-19 win)
- Week 2 at MIN: 50% win expectancy (23-17 loss)
- Week 3 at LAR: 55% win expectancy (27-24 loss)
- Week 4 vs. NE: 92% win expectancy (30-13 win)
- Week 5 vs. AZ: 46% win expectancy (24-23 loss)
Our model evaluates historically predictive metrics and differentials in an effort to look at produced stat lines to get an understanding of how likely they were to prevail given the boxes they checked. Yards per play, turnover differential, and time of possession are some of the sticky metrics over time that are factored in alongside other analytics that correlate with success.
If you sum those win expectancies, you’d see that, given how they’ve played relative to their competition, we’d expect them to have 3.4 wins this season. If you need context for just how fickle NFL results are, look no further than the 5-0 start that this franchise got off to last season:
2023 San Francisco 49ers
- Week 1 at PIT: 62% win expectancy (30-7 win)
- Week 2 at LAR: 21% win expectancy (30-23 win)
- Week 3 vs. NYG: 46% win expectancy (30-12 win)
- Week 4 vs. AZ: 48% win expectancy (35-16 win)
- Week 5 vs. DAL: 52% win expectancy (42-10 win)
As you can see, they were on the other side of this coin 12 months ago. Add up those rates and those perfect 49ers were performing like a 2.3-win team. That team was winning games that they shouldn’t have and guess what happened?
- Week 6 at CLE: 19-17 loss
- Week 7 at MIN: 22-17 loss
- Week 8 vs. CIN: 31-17 loss
The math doesn’t always catch up that quickly, but it did last season to this team. That same system suggests better results are to be expected in short order for the 2024 version as they enter a suddenly critical portion of their schedule (Seahawks tonight, Chiefs next week, and the Cowboys on Sunday night in Week 8).
San Francisco 49ers: Looking Ahead
Now for the million dollar question — will things turn around? Is this team still a threat to represent the NFC in February or has the clock struck midnight on a team led by the final pick of the 2022 NFL Draft?
The 49ers are the only team in the NFL that has won the time of possession battle in all five weeks this season and, as you’d expect, teams that do so have a way of winning with regularity.
Sitting at 2-3, can the 49ers turn things around? pic.twitter.com/LNICbOLnvr
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX)
They also are out-gaining opponents on a per-play basis by more (+0.71 yards) than both of the remaining unbeaten teams (MIN: +0.66, KC: +0.38) and the hottest story up to this point in the Washington Commanders (+0.58).
In short, they are checking the valuable boxes, even if the final scores have yet to reflect as much thanks to poor play late in games. The 49ers have outscored the opposition by 20 points through three quarters this season and, over the past decade, when a team does that through five games, they have a 74% chance to make the playoffs.
Current DraftKings Odds To Make the Playoffs
- 49ers, Yes: -175
- 49ers, No: +140
Those odds carry an implied probability of 63.6%, an indicator that sportsbooks are sweating the overall record more than the underlying profile suggests is warranted. There is no denying that the 49ers have been in position to win. If history holds, that’s usually enough to get you to the postseason. Late-game collapses aren’t ideal, but what we’ve seen from this team thus far isn’t likely to stick:
When Entering Q4 Up 7+ Points, 2024
- San Francisco 49ers: 2-2
- Rest of NFL: 45-2
You can tell that the wise guys behind these sportsbooks are conflicted by looking at the odds, through five weeks, to win the NFC.
- San Francisco 49ers (+350)
- Detroit Lions (+450)
- Minnesota Vikings (+500)
- Philadelphia Eagles (+700)
It’s rare to see a team that is only given a 63.6% implied chance to even qualify for the postseason to be the favorite to win three straight games, but that is where we sit. And if you buy into our xWins+ metric, there’s a nice buying opportunity here.
Of course, nothing in the NFL is a certainty. Nonetheless, the 49ers are slated to be favored in each of their next five games with their two most difficult games over that stretch coming at home.
In this pass-first era, the 49ers are a top-10 EPA offense and defense against the pass. This is a top-five offense in terms of yards per play, percentage of drives that reach the red zone, and third-down conversion rate (rankings that were accumulated with a rusty Brandon Aiyuk and without Christian McCaffrey). This is a defense that ranks third in non-blitz sack rate this season.
To my eye and my metrics, this team isn’t any different than the squad that won 12 games a season ago. Tweet at us (@PFN365) how many games you think the 49ers win this regular season!
All stats are from TruMedia unless otherwise stated.
