See thats where i think your wrong, a record is not the be all and end all of what a team is.
We see it every year,
the bills last year were a classic case, 4-12 team, but they were much better than their record indicates. They lost 3 games against play off contenders in OT. They were within 1 score of the pats, bears and dolphins, they could have very easily been a .500 team... Browns too, you look at their record and say they stink, fact is they were extremely hard team and a team had show up and play well to beat them.
it is far too simplistic to make assessments of a team based on record alone... there is a reason at 6-1 alex smith still sucks balls, its because he's terrible, 6-1 or not.
The Rams are a classic case this year, much better side than the 1-6 record they show... you've got to look into why they are where they are, and then you start to consider their hideous scheduale, the fact they have something like 7 DB's on IR, and important parts of their receiving group has been wiped out.
Colts, 0-7, they arent that bad (dont get me wrong, they are bad but not 0-7 bad) and you can bet your arse they'd be .500 at least if a guy named Manning was playing QB instead of the Painter.
There more to football than your win-lose ratio.
And thats consistent amongst all sports... sport is more complicated than a simple W/L.
And i think you'd have agreed with me 12 months ago when the niners were doing dumb shit that was costing them football games off their own back, but good year and dominating the worse division in football changes views i guess