Are 49ers the best ‘worst to first’ candidate for 2018?

The Los Angeles Rams are in the middle of a miraculous turnaround, also known as “the season after Jeff Fisher was fired.” It’s one of the best turnarounds in NFL history by a number of metrics. Over at ESPN, Bill Barnwell took a look at those metrics, talked about the huge turnover in playoff teams this year, and at the end, ranked the other potential “worst to first” candidates.

Barnwell first eliminated four last-place teams — the New York Jets, Cleveland Browns, New York Giants and Denver Broncos. He is pretty clear that those four teams are so far away from competition in some very serious, key areas, that they are not worth ranking.

That’s gotta hurt. That leaves four other last place teams, which include the San Francisco 49ers, Indianapolis Colts, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Chicago Bears. Barnwell ranks those teams by how likely they are to go from worst to first, and the 49ers are actually at the bottom of those rankings, despite finding early success with Jimmy Garoppolo since the quarterback change.

The Bears, interestingly, rank first. Barnwell says the Bears are as close to last year’s Rams team as it gets, with a strong, underrated defense and a first-round pick at quarterback who has looked ... less than stellar. Goff was bad last year — he looked completely unprepared for the NFL. Now he looks like a star.

I don’t really see “it” with Trubisky, but then again, I was one piling on Goff a year ago. Maybe Trubisky will be amazing and the Bears turn around in a big way, but I’m betting the 49ers will be the better team next year.