5 trends 49ers are showing after starting 2-3 to open season

The 49ers are off to a 2-3 start and there is a number of trends, both good and bad, that are beginning to show as the season has started.

The San Francisco 49ers are off to a rather inconsistent start to their 2021 campaign and will enter Week 7 coming off a bye and looking to put a stop to a three-game losing streak.

While they appeared to be off to a raucous start, with the Niners jumping all over the Detroit Lions en route to their highest-scoring half under head coach Kyle Shanahan in Week 1, ever since, the offense has sputtered and San Francisco hasn’t looked like the Super Bowl contender it was expected to be coming into the season.

The last three weeks haven’t been all doom and gloom, however, as they’ve all been winnable games, with the breaks not quite going the 49ers’ way. Be it the defense not locking down in the final 37 seconds against the Green Bay Packers in Week 3 or the offense failing to score enough against the Seattle Seahawks in Week 4 and last week against the Arizona Cardinals, the Niners have yet to put together four complete quarters of football.

And, yes, it’s still early in the season, but with the Cardinals leaping out to a 6-0 start and teams like the Packers, Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Rams, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers all starting out 5-1, there isn’t a lot of margin for error as San Francisco looks to make a push for a playoff spot during the final 12 games of the reguar season.

The good news is, according to Football Outsiders’ metrics, the Niners have the seventh easiest schedule through the rest of the year, with matchups against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Cincinnati Bengals, Atlanta Falcons, and Houston Texans left to come, not to mention a possibly Russell Wilson-less Seahawks team in the rematch in Seattle.

These are NFL teams, however, so there are no “gimme games,” which means San Francisco will need to put its best foot forward throughout the rest of the season.

In order to do that, the 49ers will need to be aware of some trends — both good and bad — that have popped up through their first five contests in order to continue with the former and cut out the latter.