The 2021 draft seeding scenarios for 49ers in season finale

ESPN offered a vote of confidence in Jimmy Garoppolo as the San Francisco 49ers' starting quarterback in 2021 — sort of. Insider Field Yates predicted the starting quarterback for each NFL team. Some changes include Deshaun Watson for the Carolina Panthers, Carson Wentz for the Indianapolis Colts, Sam Darnold for the Chicago Bears, and Marcus Mariota for the New England Patriots. Of course, you also have rookies on the list. Yates has Trevor Lawrence with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Justin Fields with the Houston Texans, and Zack Wilson with the New York Jets. While Yates lists Garoppolo as the

The San Francisco 49ers have been working this offseason with the assumption that the 2021 salary cap would end up at the floor of $175 million. "We're operating under the premise of the floor, which is 175," general manager John Lynch told reporters in January. "We felt like that was best to operate off of that and kind of formulate our plans off of that. If it's anything on top, that's gravy for us. I think that's how a lot of teams are operating." It was always assumed that the salary cap would end up being higher, possibly as high as between $180 million and $185 million. But it's better to work with the floor and avoid any surprises. The 49ers — and all NFL teams — officially got a (very) little more wiggle room on

NFL Media senior analyst Gil Brandt took a look at the eight most-likely candidates to go from worst to first and enjoy a Washington Football Team-type turnaround during the 2021 season. Washington won just three games in 2019 and then increased that total by four in 2020. Seven victories aren't overly impressive, but in a season during which the NFC East was downright awful, it was enough to earn the division crown. At the top of Brandt's ranking are the San Francisco 49ers. Kyle Shanahan's squad was in the Super Bowl just over a year ago, but injuries devastated the roster, and the depth chart was transformed by Week 2, resulting in just six wins. Then

NBC Sports' Peter King offered some scheduling insight into what will likely be a 17-game season in 2021. The NFL continues negotiations with broadcast partners on a new television deal, and the networks and league are working on the assumption that the regular season will increase by one game. Until now, there has been speculation on where those 17th games will take place. We already knew that each NFC West team would be matched up against the AFC North opponent with the same spot in its standings from this past season. That means the San Francisco 49ers taking on the last-place Cincinnati Bengals in 2021. King is hearing that the AFC will be hosting all 16 of the