The San Francisco 49ers have high expectations for this season if they can stay healthy, but they weren't given any help in the NFL schedule. Usually, a team wants a bye late in the season so it can get healthy for the stretch run. The bad news for the 49ers is that their bye week comes during Week 4, so they will have played only three games and will have to take a week off.

To end the season, the 49ers have to play 13 games in a row without a week off, from Week 5 through Week 17. The only other team that gets this same fate is the New York Jets. The only positive to come out of the bye being so early in the season is that it is surrounded by two home games. The 49ers play the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday before they go into the bye. Their first game off the bye will be on Monday Night Football against the Cleveland Browns.

The bye will also give the team two weeks to figure out how it wants to slow down Baker Mayfield and the rest of the Browns.

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The only other way this could play to the team's advantage is if Jimmy Garoppolo isn't ready to start the season. Maybe by Week 5 he would be ready. That would mean the 49ers would have to play only three games without their quarterback; usually it would have been four.

Yet, on balance, a Week 4 bye is something every NFL team hopes to avoid. When attrition becomes substantial midway through the season and players are wearing down, an early-November bye is the perfect rest break for an NFL roster. Getting a bye when the weather around the league will still be warm is not when the Niners had in mind for this season.