A potential Super Bowl hangover isn’t being factored into preseason prognostication about the 49ers. They might just have a roster that’s too good and too experienced to fall victim to it. A prediction from Nate Davis at USA TODAY certainly has San Francisco avoiding a Super Bowl hangover, but their season still ends in disappointment yet again.
Davis has the 49ers finishing with a stellar 13-4 record, along with the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
That in itself would be a rousing success considering the hurdles they’d have to clear as the previous season’s Super Bowl runner up.
Alas, they not only don’t win the title in Davis’s prediction. They don’t even make it back.
Davis has the Packers (the No. 2 seed) representing the NFC against the New York Jets and losing on the NFL’s biggest stage. To get to the Super Bowl the Packers defeat the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium in the NFC championship game.
What a gut punch that would be.
Not only to lose in yet another NFC title game, but to have it come against the Packers – a team the 49ers have defeated in five consecutive playoff matchups – would be particularly brutal. It might also lead to some hard questions about San Francisco’s ceiling now that a team like Green Bay has eclipsed them in an NFC that appears to be catching up to them.
In the big picture another NFC championship trip would be a success for the 49ers organization, but zooming into the last six seasons, it would be hard to deem this version of the 2024 campaign anything less than a failure.
