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The Most Optimistic Outcome for the 49ers in 2025

So many things have to go right for the 49ers to make a serious Super Bowl run this season.
Grant Cohn|
May 9, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan, right, confers with defensive coordinator Robert Saleh during the teamís rookie minicamp. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
May 9, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan, right, confers with defensive coordinator Robert Saleh during the teamís rookie minicamp. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

So many things have to go right for the 49ers to make a serious Super Bowl run this season.

First, roughly five rookies on defense have to play right away and perform well. We're talking Mykel Williams, Alfred Collins and C.J. West on the defensive line, Nick Martin at linebacker and Upton Stout at nickelback. For the sake of this article, let's assume all five players will flourish under the excellent tutelage of defensive coordinator Robert Saleh.

On special teams, the 49ers have to find a kicker they can trust. They currently have Jake Moody, who has a strong leg but doesn't seem to have any confidence, and Greg Joseph, who has been on six teams in six years, which is why the 49ers haven't released Moody yet. They're hoping he wins this kicker competition. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say he will.

That leaves the offense, which has an aging core of veteran players who all need to stay healthy. We're talking Trent Williams, George Kittle, Fred Warner, Nick Bosa and Christian McCaffrey.

Brock Purdy also needs to stay healthy behind an offensive line that's thinner than it was last year, plus he needs to play much better in one-score games.

And Kyle Shanahan needs to perform his best. His job could be on the line if he misses the playoffs for the second season in a row. And he knows it.

Last season, he seemed completely burned out. But he had just lost the Super Bowl, so he had a one-year grace period to get himself together. That period is now over. And the pressure to perform should bring out the best in Shanahan, who can be an elite offensive coach when his head is on straight.

Perhaps Shanahan's urgency and desperation will fuel the 49ers this season. They need him at his best.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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