San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan speaks at a news conference after an NFL football game against the Seattle Seahawks in Santa Clara, Calif., Sunday, Dec. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
The 49ers have a tough slate of 17 games for the 2024 season. While their schedule had a handful of favorable breaks, there’s one schedule quirk that did not go their way.
San Francisco this season will face an NFL-high four teams coming off bye weeks. Those teams include the Chiefs in Week 7, the Cowboys in Week 8, the Seahawks in Week 11 and the Bills in Week 13.
By comparison, the Colts are the only team with three such games, while the Seahawks, Giants, Commanders, Saints, Dolphins, Broncos and Buccaneers all have two.
The 23 other teams have either one or zero games against an opponent coming off its bye week.
This is the second consecutive year the 49ers will see four teams coming off of byes. Last year they did it vs. the Browns, Bengals, Jaguars and Cardinals. They dropped the Week 6 matchup against Cleveland and their Week 8 showdown with Cincinnati, while defeating the Jaguars in Week 10 and Arizona in Week 15. In Jacksonville the 49ers were also coming off a bye.
It’s worth noting this year that while the 49ers won’t have a direct bye week rest cancellation like they had against the Jaguars last season, they will have a mini-bye with a Week 6 Thursday night game before taking on the Chiefs the following week.
