RealGM

A pretty decent setup in my book. Not talking about the strength of the schedule since there are some pretty tough games but just the overall layout of it.

Get a soft opener with the Bears followed by a home game with a not so tough Seahawks team before getting to the hard opponents. So Lance will at least have a chance to get his feet wet before he has to dive head first into it.

Bye is about the middle of the season so it's about right.

Only 2 10am games and both of them are against the two worst teams on the schedule which also means 2 of our road games are easy.

And speaking of road games the Cardinals are the host for the Mexico City game so we get one "road" game that's on a neutral site and might have more 9er fans than Cardinal fans.

The last half of the schedule is extremely favorable. 6 of 9 are home games, one game is the already mentioned "road" MNF with the Cardinals, and the other two road games are in Seattle and in Vegas so travel is basically a non-factor. The 4 East Coast opponents we have are all home games.

I ranted in the other thread about team's sacrificing "home" games for these international games sucks from a competitive balance standpoint, most especially if those games feature divisional matchups. The NFL really should not make those games divisional matchups, its way too much of a disadvantage for the "home" teams. In essence they have to play that divisional rival twice on the road. That's not even taking into account how important divisional games are for tiebreaking procedures, etc.

So I still don't like the format, but obviously I feel better about it that The Cards are the "home" team in that game in Mexico. Its incredibly unfair to them though.

Other than that and the fact that you would like to see a few more cupcakes in there, the schedule looks pretty solid. As Jikkle metioned, having the bye smack dab in the middle of the season is much preferable to having it in like week 4. Of course once you get into the season, however injuries play out throughout the roster may have you wishing the bye was earlier or later. But that can never be helped, and the midway point is generally the preferred timeframe for the bye.

9ers can really make some hay after the bye week in week 9. Of course you get the built in benefit of rest during the bye, then Coming out of the bye:

Home against the Chargers in week 10
Neutral field against the Cards in week 11
Home against the Saints in week 12
Home against the Dolphins in week 13
Home against the Buccaneers in week 14

While there are no layup opponents in that stretch, factoring in the bye the 49ers will not have to play a true road game for SIX weeks which is crazy and only have to physically travel 1 time during that span. Also as Jikkle mentioned the game in Mexico might be a defacto home game in terms of crowd support. San Francisco can really separate themselves and solidify their playoff positioning during that stretch of the season.

That stretch should also come at a good time for Trey Lance. He'll have 1/2 a season under his belt by then, and hopefully be a lot more comfortable by then. Then having that long span of being in the comforts of home and not around hostile crowds, will allow him to settle into his comfort zone even further which will help him going into the final leg of the season and the playoffs.

I will personally guarantee right now that we will have significantly more fans in the stands in Mexico than the Cardinals. Kind of crappy that's a Monday night game, though. Makes for a short week the following week to face the Saints, though the flight should be shorter than to the east coast.

Tough year to draw the AFC East, though the NFC South shouldn't be that tough outside the Bucs. Got to take care of business in the division this year. 2-4 ain't gonna cut it.