The 49ers are NFC West champions for the second time in four seasons. San Francisco secured its first division title since 2019 with the Week 15 win at the Seahawks.
Following that up with their eighth consecutive victory in Saturday’s Week 16 rout of the Commanders, the 49ers are 11-4 and the current No. 3 seed in the NFC playoff picture.
There’s no doubt that will be San Francisco’s floor for the Super Bowl 57 tournament. The team leads No. 4 seed Tampa Bay by 4.5 games and a head-to-head tiebreaker from Week 14 with
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The only question now is whether the 49ers can stay hot enough and get the right help to move up to No. 2 or even earn the top seed, which would come with home-field advantage and the lone first-round bye in the NFC.
Here’s breaking down what needs to happen for the 49ers to improve to a stronger playoff position:
How the 49ers can displace the Vikings for the No. 2 seed
The 49ers still trail the Vikings (12-3) by a game after Minnesota rallied to beat the Giants at home on Saturday. Should the 49ers make up that game on the Vikings in the final two weeks, they should be the new No. 2 coming based on having a superior conference record now (9-2 vs. 7-3).
The 49ers finish with the Raiders and Cardinals. The Vikings face the Packers and Bears in their final two games.
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San Francisco needs to finish one game better than Minnesota over the final month and maintain that conference advantage, which it can do by beating Arizona. If not, the tiebreaker would be common games, where there is the required minimum of four.
The Vikings are 4-0 vs. the Bears, Saints, Cardinals and Commanders. The 49ers are 2-1 vs. the Bears, Saints and Cardinals and will play the Commanders in Week 16. Should Minnesota beat Green Bay and sweep Chicago in Week 18, it would have the edge in common games no matter what San Francisco does vs. Arizona.
The 49ers should feel good about their chances to pass the volatile Vikings for No. 2, but they need Minnesota to stumble at least once.
How the 49ers can jump past the Eagles for the No. 1 seed
The 49ers trail the Eagles (13-2) by two games after Philadelphia lost as an underdog at Dallas on Sunday.
The 49ers need to win out to get to 13-4 and hope that the Eagles lose to the Saints and Giants to also drop to 13-4. That would give the 49ers a 10-2 conference record, while the Eagles would drop to 8-4 in conference play, giving the 49ers the No. 1 seed.
There’s another layer to consider. What if the Eagles finish 13-4 by going 0-2 in the final two games while the Cowboys go 2-0 to also get to 13-4? The Cowboys can then take the NFC East from the Eagles with a superior record in division play.
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The 49ers still would get the No. 1 seed then, because at 13-4 their conference record would be 10-2. The Cowboys, at 8-3 in NFC play now, already have more conference losses.
That scenario also assumes the Vikings won’t run the table to finish 14-3 and get the No. 1 seed outright. Should the presumed NFC North champions finish with the same record as the Eagles or Cowboys, they would lose the head-to-head tiebreaker to both teams in the race for No. 1. In a three-way tie at 13-4 with the Vikings and the NFC East champions, the 49ers would still come out on top.