Surprisingly, the 49ers’ playoff chances don’t decrease significantly after the loss to the Bills

The 49ers’ loss to the Bills on Sunday Night Football doesn’t drastically reduce San Francisco’s playoff chances.

The San Francisco 49ers’ back-to-back road losses to the Green Bay Packers and Buffalo Bills in Weeks 12 and 13 exposed a painful reality that head coach Kyle Shanahan’s team must grapple with.

The Niners are not a playoff-caliber squad. At all.

At 5-7 and in last place in the NFC West, the Niners overall appear to be closer to a top-10 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft than a postseason berth. And while the division is still very competitive, with San Francisco just two games behind the first-place Seattle Seahawks in the win column, a division record of 1-3 could easily be the difference between an NFC West title and staying in last place .

Interestingly, however, despite a one-sided and ugly 35-10 loss to Buffalo in Week 13, the 49ers’ playoff chances were surprisingly not significantly hurt Football on Sunday evenings.

According to ESPN, despite Sunday’s loss, the Niners still have an eight percent chance of reaching the postseason.

This is down from the 13 percent chance following the Week 12 loss at Lambeau Field, which points to a few important things.

First of all, San Francisco’s playoff hopes weren’t high heading into Week 13, and the loss to Green Bay may have been the proverbial “coup de grace” for whatever postseason prospects Shanahan and Co. had.

Additionally, the 49ers’ chances of still winning the NFC West are seven percent, suggesting that the Niners’ only realistic chance of making the playoffs is by winning the division outright.

Of course, this would almost require San Francisco to win its final two games in the division (against the Los Angeles Rams in Week 15 and the Arizona Cardinals in Week 18) while also getting help from elsewhere to secure the Hawks, Rams and Red Birds stumble down the track.

Probably? Probably not. A seven or eight percent chance is of no use, no matter what happens.

But there is still a chance.

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