{"id":659237,"date":"2026-01-06T19:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T19:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/659237\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T19:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T19:54:10","slug":"where-do-49ers-rank-heading-into-the-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/659237\/","title":{"rendered":"Where do 49ers rank heading into the playoffs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Francisco 49ers<\/a> hosted the Seattle Seahawks<\/a> at Levi’s Stadium this past weekend, and Kyle Shanahan’s team was defeated 13-3, dropping them from fifth in the NFC to sixth.<\/p>\n

The NFL playoffs start this upcoming weekend, with the 49ers taking on the Philadelphia Eagles<\/a> at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday in a wild-card showdown.<\/p>\n

While San Francisco will enter the postseason as the sixth seed, but where do some the top pundits rank them among playoff teams? Here’s a roundup of some of the most recent top NFL power rankings.<\/p>\n

“Had they beaten Seattle on Saturday night, then the Niners wouldn\u2019t have taken another road trip for the rest of this season \u2013 a California Gold Rush opportunity to get home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and potentially host Super Bowl 60 in their own building, Levi\u2019s Stadium,” Nate Davis wrote. “Instead, a team that had averaged 35.7 points during its six-game win streak\u00a0was nearly shut out by the victorious Seahawks<\/a>. Worse, the 49ers, already decimated by injuries this season, were physically manhandled by Seattle and will be less than fresh physically as they embark on a cross-country trip to face the reigning Super Bowl champion\u00a0Eagles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“RB Christian McCaffrey, in particular, seems to be wearing down after handling a league-high and career-high 413 touches \u2013 a huge burden but probably a necessary one to keep this team afloat. This is a battle-tested team, one that\u2019s played in four conference championships and two Super Bowls under coach Kyle Shanahan. It\u2019s also one that could be out of gas \u2013 problematic, given a short-handed defense, since the Niners would probably continue needing to win shootouts in order to stave off elimination.”<\/p>\n

“The 49ers\u2019 loss Sunday dropped them from the No. 1 seed to the No. 6 seed, which means facing the Eagles in Philadelphia,” Josh Kendall and Chad Graff wrote. “That\u2019s a tough pull for one of the best teams in the league this season despite a horrible run of injuries. The 49ers finished the season 10th in scoring (25.71 per game).”<\/p>\n

“Despite all the injuries, they are a playoff team,” Pete Prisco wrote. “The offense came up short in the finale against Seattle, but the defense was better. That’s big for the playoffs.”<\/p>\n

“The 49ers were one win in Week 18 from the No. 1 seed, and fell all the way to No. 6 and a road wild-card weekend game against Philadelphia, the reigning champs,” Frank Schwab wrote. “It won\u2019t be easy to bounce back from that disappointment. The question is how the 49ers’ offense responds. The Niners had a great December, were absolutely\u00a0shut down in the finale by Seattle\u00a0and now they face another top-five defense in Philadelphia. It was a successful season given the injuries San Francisco dealt with, but there\u2019s a danger of a very sour ending.”<\/p>\n

“They looked tired and weak as their six-game winning streak was snapped,” Ralph Vacchiano wrote. “Maybe the Seahawks are just that good. Or maybe a long, rough season has finally taken a physical toll.”<\/p>\n

“The San Francisco 49ers<\/a> are one of the most fascinating teams in this year’s playoff field,” Moe Moton wrote. “They have been blasted by injuries all season on both sides of the ball and have struggled to rush the passer, logging an NFL-low 20 sacks for the season.<\/p>\n

“However, thanks largely to another great season from running back Christian McCaffrey, the Niners were in play for the NFC’s No. 1 seed until the regular season’s final week. When San Francisco is firing on all cylinders offensively, it can beat any team in the NFC. But if the Niners come out flat the way they did in Week 18 against the Seattle Seahawks, they won’t make it past this week’s trip to Philadelphia.”<\/p>\n

“The 49ers have overcome a slew of injuries and the offense should be fine with Brock Purdy, Christian McCafrrey and the rest of the key contributors healthy,” Vinnie Iyer wrote. “But the defense without Nick Bosa and Fred Warner and unable to keep others on the field, may not be slow down opponents enough to give the other side a chance. Getting through three road games before maybe playing Super Bowl 60 at Levi’s Stadium is a tall order with Robert Saleh trying to be respectable with that injury-riddled unit.”<\/p>\n

More 49ers: 49ers LB reveals hilarious advice Nick Bosa gave him to put on weight<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Francisco 49ers hosted the Seattle Seahawks at Levi’s Stadium this past weekend, and Kyle Shanahan’s team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2081],"tags":[220,247,265,682,1443,70316,324,3629,25,7,863,875,219,5291,20842,1184,2641,4049,248,826,267,246,88,6,35196,245,264,242,109,4043,218,1161,252,818,238,237,261,2635,1602,2517,817,829,9,266,819,776,10374],"class_list":["post-659237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-seattle-seahawks","tag-49ers","tag-american","tag-american-football","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-california-gold-rush","tag-conference","tag-davis","tag-eagles","tag-football","tag-fox","tag-fox-sports","tag-francisco","tag-gold","tag-hub","tag-listicle","tag-nate","tag-nate-davis","tag-national","tag-national-football-conference","tag-national-sports","tag-neutral","tag-news","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-hub","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-rush","tag-san","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-scores","tag-seahawks","tag-seattle","tag-seattle-seahawks","tag-seattleseahawks","tag-smg","tag-smg-listicle","tag-sport","tag-sport-scores-u0026-statistics","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-statistics","tag-u0026","tag-wa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}