The San Francisco 49ers took the NFL by surprise in 2019. After going just 4-12 in 2018, the team rebounded in a major way, winning 13 games and earning the No. 1 seed in the NFC. With a win over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, the 49ers would be Super Bowl-bound. It would make one heck of a Cinderella story.
It didn’t have to be that way, of course. The 49ers could have rose to prominence a year earlier, but the team lost quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo to a season-ending ACL injury in Week 3. That injury may have robbed 49ers fans of another dominant season.