49ers schedule release: Predicting outcome of each game in 2022

With the 49ers 2022 schedule now available, Niner Noise attempts to predict what games they’ll win, which ones they’ll lose, and why.

The NFL regular-season schedule was released on Thursday, May 12 in primetime, allowing fans of the 49ers an opportunity to see when the Niners’ games will take place during the 2022 regular season.

While the opponents and home/away designations have been set since the close of the 2021 season, the “when” was the final question on the docket for the NFL schedule makers, a query that was answered on Thursday night.

Despite ending their season in the NFC Championship game, the 49ers benefit from a third-place schedule, having finished behind both the Los Angeles Rams and Arizona Cardinals in the NFC West. So while the Rams and Cardinals will both have a more difficult schedule based solely on the 2021 winning percentage of their 2022 opponents, the Niners get a slight reprieve, landing tied for fifth according to that metric.

There are plenty of questions left to answer about the 2022 49ers, mostly swirling around the quarterback position and whether second-year signal-caller Trey Lance is going to be the starter heading into the season (likely), and what will happen to incumbent starter Jimmy Garoppolo (your guess is as good as mine).

For the purpose of this exercise, the assumption is that Lance will be the starter and that there will be little change to the expected roster that the Niners will field at the close of the preseason.

With all that established, let’s dive into the 49ers’ 2022 schedule and see how things might shake out for the Niners.