San Francisco 49ers: The Easiest Path to the Playoffs Goes Through Detroit

As of the end of Week 11, the San Francisco 49ers sit on the outside of the playoff picture looking in.  They sit in seventh place in the NFC, a game back of Green Bay, Detroit, Dallas and Philadelphia for one of the two wild-card slots and three games back of Arizona for the NFC West title.  That’s not the ideal place to be in with six weeks left in the season.

On the other hand, with a win over the New York Giants this past week, and a loss by the Philadelphia Eagles, the 49ers have regained control of their own destiny.  If they win out, they’re in the playoffs, no matter what else happens.  So, at least they will only have themselves to blame if they miss out.

In addition, if they win over Washington on Sunday and either the Lions or Packers lose, they would control their own fate for the fifth seed, thanks to wins over Dallas and Philadelphia earlier in the season. 

There’s a major difference between the fifth and sixth seeds this year; the top wild-card spot gets to travel to take on a sub-par NFC South team, while the sixth seed will likely have to face the NFC East winner.  That’s a huge jump in win expectancy.

Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

So, all in all, the 49ers have positioned themselves decently, if not ideally, for the stretch run.  Add in four out of six games at home, two games against teams with losing records and NaVorro Bowman, Glenn Dorsey and Tramaine Brock potentially returning and you have things set up for a decent shot at the playoff run.

Now, like I mentioned up above, the 49ers can guarantee a playoff spot by going 6-0, but that’s a tough road to travel on.  They may be floundering a bit, but a road trip to CenturyLink to play the Seattle Seahawks is a really tough draw.  The 49ers’ easiest road probably involves at least a little bit of help.

With that in mind, I sat down to look at the remaining schedules of the seven big NFC contenders, to try to find the easiest path for the 49ers to get into the playoffs.  The following color-coded chart shows each team’s remaining schedule, along with the quality of their opponents in terms of wins and losses:

Bryan Knowles

Glancing at that, and keeping in mind recent performance, I think that the 49ers' best bet for help is from the Detroit Lions.  The Lions have been scrapping and scraping along, and there are real issues to be taken care of there.

In their last four games, they are 3-1, but that’s a misleading 3-1. 

It took a touchdown with less than two minutes to go and then a frantic defensive stop to beat the New Orleans Saints.  It took a bonus attempt at a field goal in Wembley to beat the Atlanta Falcons, after a false start erased Matt Prater’s first attempt, a miss.  It took a touchdown with less than a minute to go to beat the Miami Dolphins.  A win is a win, but that could easily have been three losses.

Then, last week, the offense absolutely sputtered against the Arizona Cardinals.  It failed to score a touchdown and only got 4.9 yards per play.  The defense also had its worst game of the year, failing to record a sack for the first time all year.

Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press

Adding to their woes are two tough road games left in the season—a trip to New England this Sunday and a trip to Green Bay in Week 17.  Matthew Stafford has never won a game on the road against a team who ended the season with a winning record, according to Pro-Football-Reference.com; the one win since 2009 came with Drew Stanton at the helm.

So, despite the fact that it would take less work for the Philadelphia Eagles or Dallas Cowboys to fall back to the pack, thanks to tiebreakers, I really think the team the 49ers are most likely to get help from is Detroit.  Their 7-2 record belies a lot of close calls, and that luck has a way of evening itself out over the course of a full season.

If the 49ers go 5-1 rather than 6-0, they’ll need Detroit to lose two or three games to officially pass them, depending on which precise combinations of games are actually lost—it would go to the conference tiebreaker and then common games if Detroit just dropped two. 

To really clinch it, Detroit would have to lose three matches.  At New England and at Green Bay seem like very tough roads for Detroit, which leaves it searching for one more.

Perhaps Week 16 at Chicago could be that third loss?

The Bears looked terrible giving up back-to-back 50-point days, but they rebounded decently against Minnesota.  The team is capable of putting up some big results—remember, the Bears beat the 49ers back in Week 2.  For the first time all year, both Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery scored touchdowns.  This isn’t a good team, but you get the feeling it's already hit the nadir of its season.

Ed Zurga/Associated Press

I still would expect Detroit to sweep Chicago this season.  However, I think the odds of the Bears beating the Lions in Chicago are better than the odds of the 49ers beating the Seahawks in Seattle.  It’s a decent backup plan—if the 49ers can’t hand two losses to their biggest rivals, they could get a hand from the team that sent them spiraling back in Week 2.

To sum it up, I think the 49ers still need one or two more matches to bounce their way in order to get into the playoffs at this point. 

Maybe that’s Chicago splitting its season series with Detroit.  Maybe it’s Atlanta handing Arizona a loss in the Georgia Dome.  Maybe it’s the New York Giants taking Philadelphia down in the last day of the season or handling Dallas here in Week 12.  We’re talking about games in which I would favor the 49ers’ rivals—but also, enough of those games that the odds are at least one or two will fall San Francisco’s way.

Of course, all that is moot if the 49ers do even a little better or worse than expected.  If they do manage to run the table, they get in no matter what happens elsewhere—but if they drop even two games, falling to 4-2, that may not be enough to actually get them into the postseason.

At 10-6, the 49ers would be in a historically good position.  However, consider these not far-fetched scenarios:

• Detroit loses to New England and Green Bay, but otherwise handles its other four opponents (combined record: 14-26).  The Lions finish at 11-5, ahead of San Francisco.
• Green Bay drops two games somehow—at home against New England and on the road in the snow in Buffalo, perhaps?  The Packers finish at 11-5, ahead of San Francisco.
• Dallas loses on the road to Philadelphia and at home against Indianapolis, but otherwise hold on against its remaining opponents.  The Cowboys finish at 11-5, ahead of San Francisco.
• Philadelphia loses on the road to Dallas and at home against Seattle, but otherwise handle its remaining opponents.  The Eagles finish at 11-5, ahead of San Francisco.

That would see the 49ers on the outside looking in.  It’s imperative, then, that the 49ers hold serve at home and win on the road in Oakland, at the very least.  A win in Seattle in Week 15 can be considered one of those potentially lucky breaks the 49ers would need to fully close the gap.

You have to like San Francisco’s odds now much better than before its two-game road trip to New Orleans and New York.  The 49ers' margin of error is very slim, but they have every opportunity to turn this injury- and controversy-plagued season into a postseason run.

Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers.  Follow him @BryKno on Twitter.