The 49ers’ Week 9 win over the Las Vegas Raiders didn’t send them flying up the power rankings, but it also didn’t knock them off the league’s elite tier. San Francisco keeps showing up in the same neighborhood: top five, sometimes top three, and in a few eyes all the way at No. 1.
That’s the story again heading into Week 10. The 49ers remain a team that experts see as either the best in football or just a hair behind it, and the margin between those views is razor thin.
USA Today Sports put San Francisco at No. 1, pointing to a team that has been nearly automatic after bye weeks. Including the playoffs, the 49ers are 6-0 with an average margin of victory of 12.8 points in their past six bye weeks.
The outlet also noted that if the Niners secure the NFC’s No. 1 seed, they can be penciled into the NFC championship game. It added that the last time DT DeForest Buckner was on the roster, San Francisco reached the Super Bowl, and said it only seems right that Kyle Shanahan and Co. should get at least one game at SoFi Stadium this season after their September trip to Australia denied them their annual visit.
ESPN slotted the 49ers at No. 2 and framed the rest of the season as a weekly chase for the top seed. The 49ers are 3-0 in division games, and ESPN said a win would make it hard for the Seahawks to catch them in the NFC West. The Rams are still in the mix, and the teams meet again in Week 14, but the message was clear: San Francisco needs to handle the defending champions first before looking further ahead.
CBS Sports also had the 49ers at No. 2, praising how they keep performing at a high level despite the injuries piling up around them. The outlet went a step further and said Brock Purdy is in the MVP talk.
FOX Sports ranked San Francisco third and said the team appears to have cleaned up whatever went wrong before the bye week in the loss to the Falcons, calling that defeat a strange outlier on an otherwise strong season. FOX pointed to how quickly the 49ers handled the Raiders and said doing it without WR Mike Evans only made it more impressive. The outlet leaned into the depth of the roster, saying that overcoming injuries is what the 49ers do best and that they still look like the NFC favorites.
Sports Illustrated placed the 49ers fourth, though its note was less about the standings and more about the scene at Levi’s Stadium. The outlet wrote that while San Francisco is on an incredible run, there were more than 10 arrests and 40 ejections in Sunday’s rivalry game against the Raiders, and praised stadium security for removing the troublemakers.
Yahoo Sports ranked the 49ers second and said they didn’t do anything to lose the top spot; the Jaguars’ rise simply pushed them down for now. Yahoo highlighted San Francisco’s Week 9 performance, including five second-half turnovers forced by the Raiders, and said the defense has been one of the biggest surprises.
It also pointed to Nick Bosa’s return and DeForest Buckner being aboard via a trade as reasons the Niners should keep rolling. The outlet also singled out Kyle Shanahan, saying his work should not be overlooked again after he was passed over in Coach of the Year voting last season.
Bleacher Report also had San Francisco at No. 2.
It said the 49ers bounced back from their first loss of the season with a dominant win after the Week 8 bye, and noted they didn’t need lead wide receivers Mike Evans or Deebo Samuel Sr. to overwhelm the Raiders. Still, it warned that those absences could matter more against real playoff contenders.
For now, though, the ranking was based on results: four of the 49ers’ seven wins have come by 10 points or more, and the team is in the mix for home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs.
The Athletic rounded out the roundup with another No. 2 ranking, citing San Francisco’s plus-79 point differential, the second-best in the NFL. It also pointed to another big day from Christian McCaffrey, who helped power the offense in a game that barely required the 49ers to break a sweat. The Athletic added that McCaffrey’s 37 career touchdown receptions are the most by a running back in the Super Bowl era, passing Marshall Faulk.
In Other News...
Cowboys Face A Brutal Test Against A 49ers Team Built For This
The old 49ers-Cowboys rivalry still carries plenty of weight, and this latest meeting feels like another one of those games that says a lot about where both teams stand. San Francisco has spent the season looking like a club built to matter in January, sitting in strong shape in the NFC West and leaning on a roster that has been defined by balance, star power and a quarterback who has settled in nicely around George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey.
Dallas, meanwhile, remains the more volatile side of the matchup, good enough to make every week interesting but inconsistent enough to keep the pressure on. Dak Prescott gives the Cowboys a chance in almost any game, but against a 49ers team with so much history and so much current stability, the margin for error feels especially small, and the familiar postseason questions around these franchises are already hovering over this one. [Read more 🡒]
49ers Defensive Tackle Depth Is About To Face Its Biggest Test
Gracen Haltons broken ankle in Week 9 left the 49ers with a sudden hole in the middle of their defensive line, and the team chose not to address it before the trade deadline. That leaves San Francisco leaning on the depth it already has in place, with C.J. West, James Thompson Jr. and Sebastian Valdez suddenly pushed into more important roles as the season moves deeper into November.
DeForest Buckners presence matters even more in that kind of setup, not just for what he does on the field but for the guidance he can provide to a younger group being asked to absorb more snaps and responsibility. The 49ers have managed plenty of injury-related shuffling before, but this is the kind of test that can expose whether their interior line depth is sturdy enough to hold up when the rotation gets thin. [Read more 🡒]
49ers Deadline Report Shows How Worried They Were At Tight End
The 49ers spent the trade deadline looking for help in a few places, but their interest in tight end stood out as a sign of just how thin things had gotten behind George Kittle. Injuries have left San Francisco with little margin for error at the position, and the team was clearly weighing whether it needed to add another pass-catching option to stabilize the offense.
Instead, the 49ers came away with Keenan Allen, a move that should give the receiving corps a boost while they wait for other injured players to work back. Evan Engram never became the answer, and his limited role in Denver only added to the intrigue around what San Francisco was trying to solve before the deadline passed. [Read more 🡒]