49ers schedule: Quick-take win/loss predictions for 2019

Week 1, Sunday, September 8: at Tampa Bay

The Buccaneers have been a bit of an enigma over the last few years. They drafted Jameis Winston No. 1 overall back in 2015, and he was supposed to be the new franchise quarterback and face of the franchise.

Often erratic play (he’s thrown 58 interceptions in 56 career games) and his off-the-field troubles and subsequent suspension to start 2018 made his future in Tampa uncertain; still the team chose to pick up his fifth-year option and release Ryan Fitzpatrick, Winston’s backup from last year.

A lot is riding on how well Winston fares in new head coach Bruce Arians’ system, but given that this is Week 1 and growing pains are almost inevitable, I’ll take the 49ers to win their opener.

Record: 1-0

San Francisco 49ers

Week 2, Sunday, September 15: at Cincinnati

It’s difficult to tell what the plan is for the Bengals in the long term. They released long-time head coach Marvin Lewis at the end of last year, replacing him with Zac Taylor, a 35-year-old first-time head coach who was on Sean McVay’s staff with the Rams the last two seasons. The bulk of the roster, however, remains much the same as the last few years, especially at the most important position: quarterback.

Andy Dalton will enter his ninth season under center for the Bengals, and Tyler Eifert, Giovani Bernard and A.J. Green are still around as weapons, but it feels like the Bengals, who finished 6-10 last year, won’t be much better than last year.

I have the Niners grabbing a second straight win to start off the 2019 season.

Record: 2-0

Week 3, Sunday September 22: vs. Pittsburgh

The Steelers are also in a strange place. They recently paid wide receiver Antonio Brown a lot of money, only to trade him to the Raiders for a relative bargain, costing Oakland just third- and fifth-round picks in this year’s draft. Add to that the circus that has been the last two years of running back Le’Veon Bell, and the flux of the Steelers’ situation is one of the more interesting ones in the NFL.

It’s even likely they’re not one of the two best teams in their division this year. In spite of all that, the team still has Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback and a rising star in wideout JuJu Smith-Schuster, who seems primed to take over Brown’s role as the focal point of Pittsburgh’s offense. This one is probably a shootout, and I could certainly see it going either way, but given that it’s the 49ers’ home opener, I’m going to say the home team squeaks out a win, and heads into the early bye week undefeated.

Record: 3-0

Week 4: BYE WEEK

I’m not a fan of this early bye week, given the late nature of recent weeks off the team has had, but such is life.