The 49ers may not have had a good offseason, but the betting public still believes in them.
Both Sports Illustrated and Pro Football Focus gave the 49ers a “D” grade for their moves the past few months because they let so many starters leave and replaced them all with rookies and backups. And yet, the 49ers are favored to win 15 of their 17 games next season according to DraftKings. The only games they’re not favored to win are Week 5 in Los Angeles against the Rams and Week 6 in Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The 49ers currently are 1.5-point underdogs in both matchups. These betting lines reflect the confidence that average betting football fans have in Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, Brock Purdy, Nick Bosa, Fred Warner and Kyle Shanahan. As long as those six people are in the organization, the 49ers will be seen as contenders. But those six all were on the team last season and they still went 6-11 even though they were the only team favored to win all 17 games when the schedule came out. That’s right, a year ago the betting public thought the 49ers were the best team in football by a wide margin. That was incorrect. Now, the oddsmakers are slightly more skeptical about the 49ers. Slightly. They aren’t favored by more than 7.5 points in any game, so while they’re expected to win, they’re expected to pull out close games, something they couldn’t do consistently last season. The 49ers certainly have an easy schedule on paper, but they also got worse on paper this offseason. A bounce-back will require Christian McCaffrey to stay healthy and play like he did two seasons ago, and that seems like a long shot.
