Last year, Jimmy Garoppolo and the 49ers returned to the NFL playoffs as a wild-card team.
Could they do the same this season with Trey Lance at quarterback?
Peter King certainly thinks so.
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The NBC Sports writer included his 2022 NFL season predictions in this week’s “Football Morning in America” column, and San Francisco fared quite well.
It isn’t the No. 6 NFC seed like they were last year, but King pegged the 49ers to finish as the conference’s No. 7 seed with a 10-7 record and squeeze into the postseason by the skin of their teeth.
King’s note with his No. 7 prediction for Lance, Garoppolo and Co.?
“We interrupt this endless quarterback story to remind you the other 51 players on this roster are pretty good.”
San Francisco 49ers
Fair enough.
King unsurprisingly picked the Los Angeles Rams to win the NFC West, and the 49ers only earn the final wild-card spot in his prediction after a tiebreaker with the Dallas Cowboys, also projected at 10-7.
And while San Francisco blew the Cowboys away in last season’s wild-card round matchup between the two longtime rivals, King doesn’t believe the 49ers will make it past Super Wild Card Weekend this time around.
If King is right, the 49ers would take on the No. 2-seeded Green Bay Packers in the opening round of playoffs -- and lose. Not too tough of a pill to swallow, since King has Aaron Rodgers and the Packers making it all the way to Super Bowl LVII before falling to the heavily-favored Buffalo Bills.
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King isn’t the first or the last NFL pundit to predict a playoff appearance for the 49ers this season.
The team’s talented roster and exciting young quarterback have dominated headlines this offseason, and their talent is sure to continue demanding attention throughout 2022 and well into 2023.