NFL Power Rankings Week 8: Battered and bruised 49ers in real danger of missing playoffs in stacked NFC

As long as Kyle Shanahan is their coach and they’re packed with superstars like Fred Warner, Nick Bosa, and George Kittle, it’ll probably always be unfair to simply write off the San Francisco 49ers. Their pedigree and talent are just too much to overlook.

But these days, it’s not hard to wonder whether this specific iteration of the 49ers will actually stay afloat.

Through seven games, San Francisco is just a middling 3-4. It hasn’t been above .500 since a shrug-worthy Week 1 victory over the unimpressive New York Jets. Now, the 49ers will be without Brandon Aiyuk for the rest of the year, which stings doubly on top of Christian McCaffrey’s lingering absence. And the more time passes without his top playmakers, the more Brock Purdy looks like a glorified journeyman again.

Moving forward, the 49ers’ schedule doesn’t get any easier in a surprisingly stacked NFC, either.

After a date with the middling Dallas Cowboys this Sunday night, the 49ers will square off against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Seattle Seahawks, Green Bay Packers, Buffalo Bills, Chicago Bears, and Los Angeles Rams (when they’re likely healthy again) in consecutive weeks. That is a daunting gauntlet of playoff-caliber teams at worst and Super Bowl-caliber teams at best. Uh … gulp.

We’ve seen these 49ers recover from midseason slumps before. It’d be silly to count them out. But this time looks particularly bleak. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

The 49ers are a major focus of For The Win’s NFL power rankings in Week 8. Let’s unpack where they stand — along with everyone else — as the weather outside starts finally turning toward the fall.