2010 San Francisco 49ers Team Preview/Predictions
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2009 Record: 8-8
ATS: 9-4-3
The 2009 season was a mixed bag for the San Francisco 49ers. In one sense, they realized that an NFC West title is attainable; on another level, however, they had to have encountered the notion that they let a golden opportunity slip through their fingers.
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The Niners went 8-8 and proved to be something less than the embarrassment they’ve been in the past few seasons.
Head coach Mike Singletary moved the franchise forward with his defense-first emphasis and an accompanying insistence on pounding the ball between the tackles.
Yet, while Singletary’s smashmouth makeover began to get off the ground, the 49ers couldn’t fly high enough to overtake the Arizona Cardinals for the NFC West crown.[soliloquy id=”82219″]
There are four games that had to stick in the craw of the 49er players and coaches. The first was a 27-24 loss at Minnesota, as Brett Favre threw a touchdown pass to receiver Sidney Rice in the final seconds of regulation. Had the Niners been able to make a stand in that instance, they would have begun the 2009 season with a 3-0 mark.
The second loss was a 24-21 loss at a Houston team that didn’t make the playoffs, and actually hasn’t made the postseason in the snake-bitten history of that particular franchise. The third nagging defeat was a 34-27 loss to a Tennessee team that was miserable in the first half of the 2009 season, and was trying out Vince Young at the quarterback spot.
The fourth loss was a late-season 20-17 decision against the Seattle Seahawks, a weak 5-11 team the 49ers had bossed around in a convincing week two conquest.
If the Niners had won two of those games, they would have tied Arizona atop the NFC West. Given the tiebreaker permutations, that might have been enough to put San Francisco back in the playoffs for the first time since the 2002 season.
As it was, a developing team missed a few chances to move up in the NFL’s pecking order.
How will things change in 2010? Consistency is the name of the game, and because Singletary is single-minded in his desire to make the Niners a punishing run-based offense, he picked a pair of offensive linemen in the early rounds of the NFL draft.
There’s no doubt or uncertainty about the kind of team the 49ers are trying to become under the guidance of their flinty, feisty head coach.
The offensive line will have to deliver in 2010, and if it does, Alex Smith will need to take ownership of the quarterback position and display a confident persona that really hasn’t been in evidence up to this point in his unimpressive career.
Smith is not yet ready to win games for the Niners, but he has now had a substantial amount of experience in the cauldron of professional football.
If Smith can avoid losing games with untimely turnovers, running back Frank Gore might be able to make San Francisco an NFL playoff city for the first time in eight years.
49ers 2010 Outlook
The 49ers are hardly a sure thing in the NFC West, but because of the roster losses sustained by Arizona in the offseason, San Francisco is a better bet than anyone else.
49ers 2010 Futures
Super Bowl Odds: +3050
Conference Odds: +1615
NFC West Odds: -115
2010 49ers Predictions
Place they’ll finish in NFC West: 1st
Place they’ll finish in NFC Conference: 6th
Over/Under Season Wins Prediction: Over 8.5 Wins
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Dave Golokhov has written for BETUS Sportsbook, Sportsfanmagazine.com, FOX, Askmen.com, Sports-central.org, and the FOXSports.com Funhouse.
