Week 12 is a massive swing game for the 49ers playoff hopes

One of the reasons we began tracking the NFC Playoff Picture back in Week 7 and have continued that through Week 11 was to show how fluid football is week to week.

The San Francisco 49ers can’t seem to string together a winning streak of more than two this season. There’s still ample time to go on a multi-game winning streak. That’s the good news, with seven games to go. The bad news is that’s what it’ll take if the Niners want to play more than 17 games this year.

The 49ers need help to win the NFC West

Kyle Shanahan’s crew has not given themselves much wiggle room moving forward. Winning the NFC West is the easiest path to the playoffs. Heading into Week 12, the 49ers are only one game back of the Arizona Cardinals.

But the Los Angeles Rams and Seattle Seahawks are saying the same thing. The division has a cluster, as one game separates each team. The difference is the schedule. San Francisco has a first-place schedule, while Arizona works off a last-place schedule.

Arizona is on a four-game winning streak that includes wins over the Los Angeles Chargers, Miami Dolphins, Chicago Bears, and New York Jets — three of those teams are unlikely to make the playoffs. Closing out the season, Kyler Murray and company won’t exactly face murderers row.

Arizona faces the Seahawks twice, the Minnesota Vikings, the New England Patriots, the Carolina Panthers, and the Rams, and it ends the season at home against the Niners. The only team listed above with a winning record is led by Sam Darnold.

But acting like the same Cardinals team that lost by four touchdowns to the Washington Commanders at home and three touchdowns to the Green Bay Packers on the road won’t slip up along the way doesn’t feel realistic.

All in for Week 12 against the Packers

We can look at other teams' schedules and play the what-if game all we want, but none of it matters if the 49ers don’t start winning. A loss to Green Bay would all but end the Niners' playoff hopes, barring the team winning out down the stretch.

And while technically, they could afford another loss in the final six games, their room for error is non-existent.

PFF put out a graph that shows the NFC playoff chances and how those odds would be affected by a win or a loss in Week 12. Here’s where the 49ers stand:

A win over the Packers increases the Niners' chances of making the playoffs by about 20 percent, from 35 to 54 percent. But a loss sees a similar drop-off in the other direction. San Francisco’s postseason odds would drop to 14 percent.

A loss would mean the 49ers would need to watch the scoreboard and hope teams X, Y, and Z lose to offset their slip-up. That’s the bed this team has made after the first half of the season, and now they’re forced to lay in it.

George Kittle is expected to return to practice Wednesday. It wouldn’t be surprising if Nick Bosa (hip/oblique) and Trent Williams (ankle) didn’t practice this week. But it’s an all-hands-on-deck type of game. And the top-heavy team needs three of its best players if they’re going to have a chance at Lambeau Field.