San Francisco 49ers NFL Season Recap

San Francisco 49ers NFL Betting Odds

The tone of the San Francisco 49ers 2020 campaign was set in Week 1 when key players George Kittle and Richard Sherman succumbed to injuries. Though the prior would continue to play, the latter was lost for a number of months. The following week, Nick Bosa was lost for the season and both Jimmy Garoppolo and Raheem Mostert got nicked up as well. Jimmy G would return but be forced back to the bench to close out the season leaving uncertainty under center every passing week. Mostert would be in and out the lineup all season due to a high ankle sprain and a concussion. In other words, the injury bug was truly unkind to the defending NFC champs ultimately keeping the trend of the Super Bowl runner up missing out of the plays alive for another season. It’s a crying shame too! Kyle Shanahan still managed to coach the team to a 6-10 SU record without his roster fully intact a single week of the season. That just goes to show just how well off the Niners are as a franchise going into the offseason. While some moves will be made to shore up the roster, San Francisco finds itself in an excellent position to compete for a Super Bowl title as soon as next season. With that, you can be sure San Fran is a popular choice of NFL bettors on the futures odds once they hit the board for the 2021 season.

San Francisco 49ers Season Recap

The Niners got a wake-up call as early as Week 1 when they lost at home to an Arizona Cardinals team that challenged them mightily in a pair of defeats the prior season. The team would go on to bounce back from the 24-20 defeat and log its first pointspread cover after going into MetLife Stadium and handing the Jets a one-sided 31-13 defeat as touchdown favorites. Unfortunately, Garoppolo suffered a leg injury that would force him out of the game. And that my friends brought about the Nick Mullens era, and boy did it look like San Fran wouldn’t skip a beat after he ripped the Giants secondary for 343 passing yards and a touchdown without an interception thrown to get the Niners out to a 2-1 SU and ATS start. The real Nick Mullens reared his ugly head the following week when he threw for 200 yards and two costly interceptions with the last being returned for a touchdown that allowed the Philadelphia Eagles to score the 25-20 comeback win and cover as 8.5-point underdogs.

“We got hit with a snowball and then it went into an avalanche,” Kittle said Monday. “We lost a lot of key guys right away. We’d have two guys come back and we’d lose three. We’d have one guy come back and we’d lose three. It just kind of was the story of the early weeks of the season.”

Garoppolo would return the following week against Miami, but it proved to be a week to soon. He was ineffective through a half of play and was consequentially benched in a game the 49ers shockingly got blown out 43-17 in. Jimmy G was much more on point the following week leading the Niners to the 24-16 upset win over the Los Angeles Rams as short 2.5-point underdogs, and then did what he had to do to allow San Fran to go into Gillette Stadium and come out with the dominating 33-6 win and cover as 3-point road dogs. Unfortunately, it would be the final game Jimmy G would finish after reinjuring himself in the 37-27 loss to the Seattle Seahawks the following week. The loss would be the first of a three-game win streak. The combo of Mullens and C.J. Beathard was simply unable to tote the mail the rest of the way. San Francisco would go on to win just two of its final eight games and log a 3-5 ATS mark for NFL bettors during that stretch. In the end, the 49ers finished the season 6-10 SU and a moneymaking 9-7 against the closing NFL odds at online sportsbooks.

With Mostert, Jerick McKinnon and Tevin Coleman in and out of the lineup due to injury all season, the door opened for Jeff Wilson Jr. to showcase his talents. While he also came down with the injury bug at times, he did enough to let the coaching staff know he could be depended upon to tote the rock when healthy. The third year back led the team in rushing with 600 yards on 126 carries which equated to a solid 4.8 yard per carry average in Shanahan’s run based attack. He also proved to be a viable threat catching 13 passes and turning them into 133 yards in his three starts and 13 overall appearances. In all, Wilson Jr. scored a total of 10 touchdowns proving to be a moneymaker in DFS as well as a lucrative player to back in the player props market when given the reps to strut his stuff.

Also remember the name Brandon Aiyuk heading into next season. Though he only partook in 12 games due to injury and COVID precautions, the rookie wide receiver led the team with 748 receiving yards and 5 TD on a total of 60 receptions. He also proved to be a lethal weapon with his legs in rushing for 77 yards and a pair of touchdowns on only six attempts. While not a true WR1, he’s the perfect complement to Deebo Samuel and could become even more of a fixture in the Niners offense moving forward with a healthy George Kittle back in the huddle.

Even with a number of key defensive standouts out for the year, the 49ers still possessed one of the best defenses the league had to offer. It ranked No. 5 overall in allowing fewer than 315 total yards per game, and was once again rock solid at defending the run (No. 7) and pass (No. 4). Unfortunately, Robert Saleh more than likely won’t be calling the defensive plays next season with him the favorite to land at least one of the head coaching jobs made available at the season’s end. Only time will tell if the unit can continue to perform like it recently has. But with the remaining talent still on the roster, there shouldn’t be much drop-off – if any – moving forward.

The injury bug rarely locks onto a team for multiple seasons. Hopefully it flies somewhere else in 2021! “We got behind the eight ball,” general manager John Lynch said. “Sometimes stuff just happens and I think it happened league wide. We certainly got hit by it, not only in the quantity of people that got hurt but the quality. I looked over in the suite yesterday and it look like an All-Pro team. We need those guys on the field, not in the suite watching the game.”

San Francisco 49ers Schedule & Results

49ers Past Seasons(2000)

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