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Sports Illustrated is "Indifferent" About the 49ers' Offseason Moves

The experts seem split on the 49ers' offseason moves.
Grant Cohn|
Jun 10, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers and San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) work on passing drills during an OTA at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
Jun 10, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers and San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) work on passing drills during an OTA at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The experts seem split on the 49ers' offseason moves.

Some experts think the 49ers got worse with the loss of nine starting players. Some experts think the 49ers trimmed the fat on their roster and got better with the additions of Robert Saleh and Brant Boyer.

Sports Illustrated's Gilberto Manzano falls somewhere in the middle. He didn't list the 49ers as winners or losers this offseason. Instead, he's "indifferent" about the moves they made.

"The 49ers might benefit from the many subtractions they made this offseason," writes Manzano. "San Francisco needed to evolve for several reasons, one of which was to become more savvy about the salary cap and Brock Purdy’s new massive contract. 

"Clearly, the 49ers’ approach to winning the Super Bowl wasn’t working. Players were aging, and the production wasn’t worth the contracts. Developing a new crop of stars could lead to a quick fix for a team that still has plenty of talent."  

Manzano is correct that the 49ers have not found the Super Bowl-winning formula yet. They tried spending lots of money on veterans the past few seasons and that strategy didn't work. Now they're asking Saleh and Kyle Shanahan, two highly-regarded coaches, to develop younger players and win with them.

The 49ers have the easiest schedule in the league this year. They need to win at least 10 games and make the playoffs. Anything less is a fireable offense. So for the sake of Shanahan and John Lynch, hopefully they did enough this offseason to keep their jobs next year.

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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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