49ers begin 2023 on 3rd-longest win streak in franchise history
The 49ers finished their 2022 campaign on a tear. After beginning the year 3-4, they ripped off 10 consecutive victories to close the regular season. Their 10 wins to finish 2022 were tied for the third-longest winning streak in franchise history.
Now they’ll open the 2023 season with a chance to extend that regular-season winning streak. They’ve eclipsed the 10-straight wins mark two other times in franchise history.
For San Francisco their win streak is the longest active one in the NFL. The Bengals have won eight straight, and the Bills rattled off seven in a row.
It won’t be easy for the 49ers with games against the Steelers, Rams and Giants in the first three weeks, but there’s a chance they can set the franchise record for consecutive victories if they can start the season hot.
Let’s look at some of the longest winning streaks in 49ers franchise history:
1989-1990: 15 games
In 1989 the 49ers beat the Giants 34-24 in Week 12 on Monday Night Football. They wouldn’t lose again until Week 12 of the 1990 season when they fell 28-17 at home to a bad Rams team.
For the 2023 team to beat this they’ll need to start the season 6-0 with wins over the Steelers, Rams, Giants, Cardinals, Cowboys and Browns. It’s not an impossible hill to climb.
1997: 11 games
It’s hard to start a year much better than the 49ers did in 1997. That year they fell to the Buccaneers 13-6 in the season opener. After that they ripped off 11 in a row. It wouldn’t be a bad thing for this year’s club if they snapped their 10-game win streak in the opener, only to rattle off 11 straight after that.
The ’97 team saw their win streak come to an end in jarring fashion. They were favored by 4.5 points over the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium, and got lambasted 44-9.
1948: 10 games
It didn’t take long for the 49ers franchise to win double-digit games in a row. In their third season in existence San Francisco ripped off 10 in a row to open the 1948 campaign. Their 10th win was against the Chicago Rockets, but some of their other wins came against the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dons and Brooklyn Dodgers. They eventually lost to the also undefeated Cleveland Browns.
1994: 10 games
It was ugly for the 1994 49ers when they hosted the Eagles in Week 5. Philadelphia obliterated San Francisco at home 40-8. The blowout loss dropped the 49ers to 3-2, but it acted as a wakeup call. They wouldn’t lose again until the final week of the season when they fell to the Vikings 21-14 in Minnesota. San Francisco went on to win the Super Bowl.
2022-???: 10 games
This is the team’s active win streak. Their lost loss was against the Chiefs, who thumped the 49ers 44-23 and gave them their only L at Levi’s Stadium last season.
1983-84: 9 games (twice)
The 49ers’ ownership of the 1980s began with The Catch in the 1981 NFC championship game. There may not be a better illustration of their dominance in the decade than their pair of nine-game winning streaks across the 1983 and 1984 seasons.
San Francisco won nine straight from the end of the 1983 season through the first six weeks of the 1984 season. That’s a nice winning streak tied for the fourth-longest in franchise history. They fell in Week 7 that year to the Steelers in a 20-17 thriller at Candlestick.
After falling to the Steelers, the 49ers went on ANOTHER run of nine consecutive victories that carried them through Week 16 of that year. That gave them 18 wins in 19 games.
Perhaps the most impressive part of the second nine-game streak is the final scores of 33-0, 41-7, 35-3 and 51-7.
1992-93: 9 games
The 49ers closed the ’92 season on a heater. They went undefeated from Week 10 through the end of the year and opened 1993 in the exact same spot as this year’s club. They were on a roll and opening in Pittsburgh. The 1993 team took care of business against the Steelers with a 24-13 victory to begin the season. That’s where the streak ended though. A 23-13 road loss to the Browns in Week 2 derailed their quest to tie what was then the second-longest win streak in franchise history of 10 games.
