The 49ers are a prime candidate for regression in 2020. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
It’s a division seemingly loaded from top to bottom. Can the 49ers repeat?
Over the past five seasons, each team in the NFC West has won at least one division title. The only club to do it twice was the Los Angeles Rams, who followed up 2017 with a 13-3 finish and eventually made an appearance in Super Bowl LIII.
This past year, Kyle Shanahan’s San Francisco 49ers won 13 games as well and it was quite a surprise considering the club finish 4-12 the previous year. That nine-win improvement in one season is tied for the third-greatest turnaround in league history.
After postseason wins over the Vikings and Packers, the team came apart in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LIV. But this is still a very talented squad.
The Niners were joined in the playoffs by the Seattle Seahawks, who rode quarterback Russell Wilson to an 11-5 finish but faded down the stretch. The team managed a postseason split with the Eagles and Packers but the defense is a far cry from its recent predecessors.
The Los Angeles Rams slipped to 9-7 and missed the playoffs while Kliff Kingsbury’s Arizona Cardinals were the only team of the four to finish 2019 with a losing record. But Kyler Murray and company were playing pretty solid football the final month of the season.
It’s safe to say that this shapes up as a pretty formidable quartet. So how does the NFC West stack up from bottom to top as training camp approaches?