The San Francisco 49ers enter the 2025 NFL season, hoping to rebound from a disappointing 6-11 record, the first franchise since 2020 that led to NFC West Cellar.

After the fourth-place NFC West finish, the 49ers played in the fourth-place championship game at NFC North, NFC East and AFC North, the Chicago Bears, the New York Giants and the Cleveland Browns. This could help San Francisco quickly return to NFC West and quickly compete for the playoffs.

In addition to the NFC West Slate, the 49ers schedule also includes a showdown with each team at NFC South and AFC South.

That timeline is San Francisco's 2025 NFL Draft, which is not enough to convince Pro Football Network for the health of the 49ers star, but San Francisco will be in the 2025 playoffs.

Instead, PFN predicts Arizona will win the NFC West and lets San Francisco completely miss the NFL playoffs.

In my opinion, this is a division in the NFL with four legitimate threats on the top. The Cardinals benefit from the third-place schedule, which should allow them to avoid their killers who opened in 2024 (Last season's September rivals: Bill, Rams, Lions and Commander). - Professional Football Network.

In addition to Arizona in NFC West, PFN also predicts Washington to be the NFC East champion, Detroit to be the NFC North champion and Tampa Bay to be the NFC South Championship. PFN has selected the NFC Wildcard teams of defending Super Bowl champions Philadelphia, Green Bay and Seattle.

In AFC, PFN predicts Buffalo will occupy the AFC East crown, and Baltimore won Houston's AFC to conquer the AFC South and Los Angeles chargers to secure the AFC West championship. Kansas City, Cincinnati and Denver are PFN's AFC wildcard team.

PFN features the Los Angeles Rams, Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons on its NFC teams who just missed the playoffs.

Although the 49ers looked outside a season ago, it was weird to see San Francisco expects to miss the playoffs again and not even projected in PFN's 2025 NFL playoff pictures.

For a franchise that only stands out from the Super Bowl and in overtime losses in the championship game, maybe flying under the radar is a bit bad. Left tackle Trent Williams and star Christian McCaffrey have improved health and should make the 49ers' offense very different in 2025.

San Francisco defends each of the top five draft picks for players in the 2025 NFL Draft. If these defensive additions are eliminated, then the 49ers should be restored to thick bottom.