The 49ers won’t play on wild card weekend. San Francisco by way of taking the No. 1 seed in the NFC secured a first-round bye. There’ll still be plenty to watch though since their opponent will be dependent on how the games shake out.
Since San Francisco is the top seed, they’ll face the lowest seed left when the dust settles on the first set of playoff games. That means there are four possible matchups for them in the divisional round which opens January 20.
Here’s a quick reminder of the wild card games:
5. Eagles at 4. Buccaneers
6. Rams at 3. Lions
7. Packers at 2. Cowboys
Here’s how each 49ers divisional round matchup could play out:
No. 4 seed Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The only way the 49ers host the Buccaneers is if everything goes chalk. They face Tampa Bay in this scenario:
Buccaneers win
Lions win
Cowboys win
No. 5 seed Philadelphia Eagles
An NFC championship game rematch could easily come a round earlier this year. If Philly swings an upset and is the lone road team to win on wild card weekend it’ll be the Eagles at Levi’s Stadium. Here’s that scenario:
Eagles win
Lions win
Cowboys win
No. 6 seed Los Angeles Rams
A 2021 NFC championship rematch could also very easily line up in the divisional round. The Rams would need to win the battle of the quarterback revenge games, and then the Cowboys would need to handle business at home vs. Green Bay. Here’s what that looks like:
Rams win
Cowboys win
The Eagles-Buccaneers game wouldn’t have any bearing on the 49ers’ opponent in this instance since they’d be facing the lower seed and the winner of Bucs-Eagles would then visit the Cowboys.
No. 7 seed Green Bay Packers
Would it really be an NFL postseason if the 49ers and Packers didn’t meet? This is an easy scenario since the Packers are the lowest seed:
Packers win
If this happens the other games don’t matter. Even if the Eagles and Rams both win the 49ers would still be facing the Packers.
