Photo: Vernon Davis sporting his NFC West Championship hat

While the Seattle Seahawks closed the gap a bit on the San Francisco 49ers with the trade for safety Jamal Adams, the Super Bowl runner-ups remain the favorite to repeat as NFC West champions. Bleacher Report may not see it that way, though. The site asked five of its NFL writers to pick each division's winners, and the NFC West wasn't the landslide victory for the 49ers that you might expect. In fact, three of the five writers went with the Seahawks, including longtime 49ers fan Matt Miller. Only Gary Davenport and Brad Gagnon picked San Francisco to repeat as division champions while Miller, Tyler Dunne, and Brent Sobleski each

Earlier this year, NFL teams were expecting a significant salary-cap increase in 2021. A new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the league and the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) had been struck, and future television contracts should have increased revenue opportunities, and with it, the ability to spend more on players. Then COVID-19 happened. Here we are, entering the sixth month of a pandemic. The timeframe is longer if you look at the worldwide impact. The coronavirus has impacted everyone's daily lives, and the sports world has not been immune to the effects. There probably won't be fans in NFL stadiums. Teams that are allowed to have the public attend games will have to limit the number of spectators. That will impact

Don't let anyone tell you that San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan is looking past anything. He has repeatedly said that he knows how difficult it is to reach the Super Bowl. But make no mistake, his goal this season, and every season going forward, is to get there again and not let it slip through his fingertips. "February and March, I wasn't in the best state," Shanahan told Chris Simms on the Chris Simms Unbuttoned podcast of the Super Bowl LIV loss. "I mean, no one died. I still have my health, I still have my family, but man, does it hurt when you know how close you were to something and how big of a deal that is, and how easily you could have done it." Shanahan believes the