The San Francisco 49ers, along with the rest of the league, are in one of the rare lulls in the NFL season. With the annual draft now a thing of the past, league-wide attention turns toward the next important date in the calendar: the release of the 2025 schedule.
The schedule is set to be released on May 14 with a televised event on NFL Network and NFL+ at 8 p.m. ET, although history tells us that leaks will happen in the days and hours leading up to the show.
But this is the NFL, and the pomp and circumstance is part of the deal, so this is nothing new for fans of the league. Either way, it is a major milestone in the offseason calendar and an indication that the beginning of the new campaign is not far away.
With that in mind, there are some general schedule-related predictions that can be made and make the lead up to the release all the more intriguing.
Here are three prognostications with the schedule as the focus.
Prediction 1: 49ers will start the season at home
This prediction isn't exactly predicated on anything other than hope and a little pattern watching.
Going back to 2017, when head coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch arrived, the Niners have started the season at home four times, but just two of those have come over the last four seasons (2020 and 2024). They've also had three seasons (2019, 2021, and 2023) where they've begun with two straight road games, but not once have they had successive home contests to kickoff the year.
That particular trend probably won't stop in 2025, only because the San Jose Earthquakes are scheduled to play at Levi's Stadium on Sept. 13, the day before the Sunday of Week 2 for the NFL.
But the 49ers should benefit from a home game to start Week 1 like they did last season.
Prediction 2: 49ers will still get 4-5 primetime games
Even though the Niners are coming off a disappointing 6-11 season, they are still among the NFL's more beloved and recognizable franchises. This means that even when they are coming off a down season, they're still likely to attract viewership for primetime games from general football fans.
Because of that, expect the 49ers to be among the league-leaders in primetime matches, which includes Thursday Night Football, Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football.
The league maximum is six primetime matchups, but the original schedule almost never has teams getting to the max in case of unplanned flex dates later in the season.
So the Niners, who played just once on Monday night last season, should see themselves right up against the maximum on May 14, with the league hopefully leaning more on Sunday or Monday nights, unlike last year's doubling up on Thursday night games.
Potential options for marquee matchups include both games against the Los Angeles Rams or Seattle Seahawks, at the Houston Texans, and home for the possibly up-and-coming Chicago Bears.
Prediction 3: 49ers' bye will be in a favorable, midseason position
This is another trend we've seen since Shanahan and Lynch arrived.
Since 2017, they've had their bye fall on Weeks 11, 11, 4, 11, 6, 9, 9, and 9, suggesting the league is prone to giving the Niners a nice midseason break more often than not.
Who's to say if there's any reason for it, although the fact that they are routinely among the league leaders in miles traveled in a season may factor into this. And with their nearest non-divisional matchup for 2025 (at Houston) still being two time zones and roughly 1,600 miles, that trend figures to continue.
So it stands to reason that the bye will yet again be closer to the Weeks 9-11 range, something that has benefited the team in the past, most notably in runs to the NFC Championship game in 2022 (9-0 after their Week 9 bye) and the Super Bowl in 2023 (7-2 after their Week 9 bye, although the second loss was in a meaningless Week 18 game).
Tune in on May 14 to see if these predictions come true and when the 49ers will play their 17-game schedule for the 2025 season.