49ers 2008 -- another rough year?

The NFL schedules for the 2008 season have been released. It's gonna be a rough one for my boys. I'm predicting a 7-9 season (click here to see my complete slate of game-by-game predictions). But it's only going to be a 7-9 season if the team can overcome a brutal slate of games between weeks 5-8, when the team faces, in order, the Patriots, Eagles, Giants, and Seahawks. That's an almost-certain 0-4 stretch. Throw in the Saints game the week before the team faces the Pats, and it might even be an 0-5 stretch. P-U!

However, the Niners finish the season with a cream puff run of Jets, Dolphins, and Rams, followed by a week 17 game against a Redskins team that, frankly, doesn't scare me. If the Niners are anywhere CLOSE to .500 going into week 14, they'll make the playoffs.

There's a lot to be excited about going into this year. There's the quarterback competition. There's Mike Martz running the offense with a (hopefully) healthy Frank Gore. The defense is getting younger and faster. Who knows? The NFL is a strange league, where crap teams one year become Super Bowl contenders the next. As that walrus Chris Berman likes to say, "That's why they play the games."