San Francisco 49ers 2018 schedule release breakdown

The San Francisco 49ers 2018 schedule has officially been released. What can we learn from it?

It is official, we now know the order in which the San Francisco 49ers will play their 2018 opponents.

The 49ers open next season with an absolutely terrifying first half of the season. In the first eight games the team will play six playoff caliber teams along with two games against the Arizona Cardinals.

The season opener will be against the Minnesota Vikings. This game will of course be difficult, seeing as the Vikings made a appearance in the NFC Championship last season and then signed quarterback Kirk Cousins. Even though this game will be among the most challenging of the season for the team, it will serve as a great barometer for where the team is at to start the season.

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Things get slightly easier in week two when the team takes on the Detroit Lions. The Lions are no team to take lightly, as they went 9-7 last season, but they are a team the San Francisco 49ers are capable of beating in a tough game.

To cap off what is the most difficult four game stretch of the season the team will then go on a two game road trip in weeks three and four to play the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers.

The Chiefs are a team currently going through a massive roster overhaul, but that is not as to say they will not be a great team. They should be a great match up for the 49ers next season.

The game against the Los Angeles Chargers may prove to be one of the most difficult of the season. The 49ers will be coming off of a very difficult three game stretch and will be on the road against what may be one of the better teams in the league next year. Whether the team is able to walk away with a win in this game to end this difficult stretch of the season will tell us a lot about where the team is at.

The team will get a brief relief when they return home to play the Arizona Cardinals in week five. While no game in the NFL is easy, this game should certainly be a notch below what proceeded it and what will follow.

And what will follow is another difficult game when the team travels to Green Bay to face off against the Packers. Green Bay is always a tough matchup as long as Aaron Rodgers is playing.

The hellish first half of the season continues in week seven when the Los Angeles Rams come to town. Both match ups against the Rams will prove to be immensely important as the team may be battling with them for first place in the division. A head to head win will go a long way in helping the team in their quest for first place.

Weeks one through seven were absolute torture, but week eight begins a relatively easy stretch of weeks for the team. In weeks eight through sixteen the 49ers play teams that will likely not make the playoffs in 2018. This includes the Cardinals once again, the Oakland Raiders, the New York Giants, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Seattle Seahawks, the Denver Broncos, the Seahawks again and the Chicago Bears, with a bye in week 11.

These eight games will give the team a chance to bolster their record as they may drop a few games in the first half of the season against some of the better teams in the league. The Broncos and Seahawks games may prove to be more difficult based on how the team’s bounce back, but regardless the second half of the team’s season will prove to be much easier than the first.

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The team will finish the season off in week 17 against the Los Angeles Rams. If the team enjoys the success it hopes to this game may be huge. Seeing the team you may be battling for first place in the division in week 17 provides a possible scenario that the game will essentially be an extra playoff game, or atleast a game in which seeding is decided.

Judging by their schedule, next year’s 49ers team is capable of winning ten games, and possibly an eleventh depending on how their week 17 game goes.

Only time will tell if the team will meet these expectations. Either way, we should be in for an interesting season.