One of the highlights of a week seven bye for the 49ers is that we're close enough to the middle of the season that we can assess where the team is standing at this point. The team is constantly evolving, but we have some idea about what the 2011 San Francisco 49ers are made of. They have some great coaching and the execution is excellent in some areas and solid in others while continuing to evolve.
Back on September 5, I took a look at the 49ers 2011 schedule and considered whether they could crack the 7.5 over/under on wins. It is always entertaining to look back at how wrong we are with predictions. I had the 49ers going 2-4 through the first six weeks and finishing 7-9 on the season. I had them starting the season 2-1, but then losing that three game stretch against Philadelphia, Tampa Bay and Detroit.
Obviously I (and many others) was incredibly wrong about the start of this season. We now head into the second half of the season with incredibly high expectations. In reality, all ten remaining games qualify as winnable for one reason or another. All the NFC West games are extraordinarily winnable and likely will be disappointments if the team loses. The Redskins and Giants are winnable, but a notch below the NFC West. The Steelers at home is very winnable but we don't really know what to make of the Steelers entirely. As for the Baltimore Ravens, while it is winnable I think most would agree it is the toughest game remaining on the schedule.
I'm not going to make predictions because in reality I could pick this team to go 13-3 or better and make a legitimate argument for that record. If I had to pick the "losable" games, I'd go with @ Baltimore, @ Seattle and versus the New York Giants. It remains to be seen what the final couple games of the year will mean based on conference standings, so that Rams game could be all over the place.
Feel free to make your predictions, although I would imagine I would see a majority of high optimism. Check out the rest of the schedule after the jump.
Week 8 - vs. Cleveland
Week 9 - @ Washington
Week 10 - vs. NY Giants
Week 11 - vs. Arizona
Week 12 - @ Baltimore
Week 13 - vs. St. Louis
Week 14 - @ Arizona
Week 15 - vs. Pittsburgh
Week 16 - @ Seattle
Week 17 - @ St. Louis