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Pro Football Focus Ranks the 49ers' Roster 6th Best in the NFC

The 49ers might not be done yet, though.
Grant Cohn|
Pro Football Focus Ranks the 49ers' Roster 6th Best in the NFC
Pro Football Focus Ranks the 49ers' Roster 6th Best in the NFC

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San Francisco 49ers

This might seem harsh, but it's fair.

Pro Football Focus just ranked the top five rosters in the NFC and did not include the 49ers. San Francisco ranked just outside the top five in the conference at No. 6, which may come as a shock, considering the 49ers made it to the NFC Championship game last season, but it accurately reflects how things have changed this then.

Here are the top six rosters in the NFC according to PFF:

1. Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

2. Los Angeles Rams.

3. Green Bay Packers.

4. Philadelphia Eagles.

5. New Orleans Saints.

6. San Francisco 49ers.

Tampa and L.A. clearly are in a tier by themselves. Then there are the Packers, who lost Davante Adams this offseason, but still have a great defense, an excellent offensive line, excellent running backs and a Hall of Fame quarterback. If their wide receivers are merely average, the Packers could win their division again. They're all in.

Then there are the Eagles, who made the playoffs last season, then made a big splash this offseason trading for A.J. Brown, an elite wide receiver who will make their team significantly better. They're all in.

Then there are the Saints, who lost head coach Sean Payton to retirement, but he doesn't factor into their roster ranking. The Saints still have an elite defense, a terrific offensive line and an elite group of skill position players, plus they signed Tyrann Mathieu this offseason. Plus they were 9-3 last season when their quarterback wasn't Trevor Siemian or Ian Book, and the Saints replaced them with Andy Dalton, who will back up Jameis Winston. They're all in.

And then there are the 49ers, who are not all in. If they were, they would have released Jimmy Garoppolo and used his cap space on other players such as Tyrann Mathieu, who was available. But the 49ers kept Garoppolo and his $27 million cap hit, which allowed other teams to pass them up for the time being.

Maybe the 49ers aren't done. Maybe they'll get rid of Garoppolo soon, either via trade or release, and then spend money to bring in additional impact players. Theoretically, they have until the trade deadline to improve their roster. Let's see what they do.

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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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