San Francisco 49ers Over/Under Wins Odds 2021: San Fran look good on paper

A Matthew Stafford led 49ers could be a team that is super competitive. They are a good team on paper writes Zach Rainey...

The San Francisco 49ers were the league’s subject of discussion leading up to the 2021 NFL Draft.

They gave up a haul to move up to No. 3. For about a month, people thought it would be Alabama’s Mac Jones. But as the draft drew closer, there became more and more buzz over the team selecting Trey Lance.

Honestly, Lance is probably a better fit. Lance took most of his snaps at North Dakota State from under center, and a lot of scouts said, because of that, he was the most pro-ready quarterback in the draft, especially in Kyle Shanahan’s system of play-action passes and five-step drops.

The team will still have to decide how to approach the quarterback situation. I think they’ll look to move on from Jimmy. Whether it’s cutting their losses with an outright release, or trying to get pennies on the dollar, I see Lance ending the year with more starts than Jimmy Garoppolo. Shanahan also managed to pick up Josh Rosen with nobody noticing.

This team’s biggest strength in the past has been running the football, setting up those play-action passes.

Raheem Mostert will return and likely split carries with Trey Sermon, who the 49ers drafted out of Ohio State after an impressive end of the year run.

I still have my concerns whether this team’s receivers with Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, Richie Games and Mohamen Sanu will be enough to have a vertical impact, but with Samuel’s ability to take handoffs out of the backfield for explosive gains, it’ll be about if you can get them going side to side and exploit them over the top after that.

As usual, heir defense will likely be the reason for their success this year, or lack thereof.

Nick Bosa will hopefully be able to stay on the field. He’s a great talent, but the best ability you can have is availability. They’ve been fortunate enough to be able to play Dee Ford when Bosa is injured, but being able to have that rotation of those two and Arik Armstead is where this defense will thrive.

Javon Kinlaw didn’t have much of an impact as a rookie last year out of South Carolina, but being able to now go through a full offseason and mini camps and training camps with the team, I expect to see a jump from him in year two.

Of course, you can’t forget about Fred Warner in the middle. He was the Devin White of two years ago, making defensive plays in the playoffs and leading his team to the Super Bowl with his astounding play.

If the 49ers can keep those guys healthy, especially Bosa, this could be one of the league’s best defenses.

Projecting wins and losses for this team will be difficult because we don’t know how good Jimmy G is at this point, whether the team will try and put him out there to get some trade value, or whether they’ll start Lance out of the gate. Then it becomes how quick Lance can pick up the NFL’s speed and reads and stuff like that.

Either way, I think they’ll be able to win their first two games over Detroit and Philly.

If Aaron Rodgers is there, I think they fall to the Green Bay Packers in Week 3. If no Rodgers, mark it as a win.

I think they beat Seattle at home and the game at Arizona will be a 50/50 game.

They’ll fall to to the Indianapolis Colts in Week 7 before defeating the Bears in Week 8 and the Cardinals at home in a 50/50 game in Week 9.

They’ll be on Monday Night Football for a showdown against the Rams in Week 10 and I think they fall in that game.

They’ll rebound with wins against Jacksonville, Minnesota, Seattle, Cincinnati and Atlanta.

The game against Tennessee in Week 16 is a 50/50 game to me. They’ll crush the Houston Texans in Week 17 before falling to the Rams in the final game of the season.

I might be a tad optimistic, but I have the 49ers down for 11 wins this season. Last time we saw this team fully healthy, especially at the quarterback spot, they were a Super Bowl caliber team on just running the ball and defense.

Vegas has their projected over/under at 10.5 wins at plus-money. If the 49ers are as good as they look on paper, I could see them possible taking one of the games against the Rams, the game against Indy, or the game at Tennessee, all of which I have marked as losses and still have them at 11-6. give me the over.