 The 1996 San Francisco 49ers finished in 2nd place in the NFC West.Therefore, in , the 49ers played all their division rivals (marked in blue) twice each, one game each against the other second-place finishers in the NFC (marked in orange), one game against one additional team in the NFC East and NFC Central (marked in red), and one game against each team in the AFC West (marked in yellow) "except" for the 4th-place Raiders (marked in silver).When the divisions were balanced between 1995 and 1998, each team would play a home and away series against their divisional rivals (8 games), two teams from each of the other divisions within the conference (two having finished the same place, and two others determined by where they placed in the standings), and four teams from a division in the other conference by the aforementioned rotary basis (where the team placed in the standings determines which team in the interconference division they will not play, and that team would have the "polar opposite" place (i.e.