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Why 49ers are Expected to Make Playoffs Despite Dismal Offseason

We're talking about a team that went 6-11 last season and just lost nine starters including Dre Greenlaw, Charvarius Ward and Talanoa Hufanga.
Grant Cohn|
Dec 1, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) warms up before a game against the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark Konezny-Imagn Images
Dec 1, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) warms up before a game against the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark Konezny-Imagn Images | Mark Konezny-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

Almost everyone agrees the 49ers have had the worst offseason of any team in the NFL.

And yet, most people still believe the 49ers will bounce back next season and make the playoffs. Why?

We're talking about a team that went 6-11 last season and just lost nine starters including Dre Greenlaw, Charvarius Ward and Talanoa Hufanga. Those are impact players and the 49ers replaced none of them.

But the 49ers still have Fred Warner, George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey, Trent Williams, Jauan Jennings, Nick Bosa, Deommodore Lenoir and Brock Purdy. Those are eight good players. Plus, they have 11 picks in the upcoming draft. Plus, they have Kyle Shanahan, who is supposed to be an elite head coach.

So if the 49ers have another good draft class like the one they had last year, and if Shanahan coaches up to his standard, and if the 49ers have better injury luck next season, lots of people believe the 49ers will be Super Bowl contenders once again.

But the injury excuse is revisionist history.

The 49ers weren't good last season even when Trent Williams and Brandon Aiyuk were healthy. The only player who truly missed almost the entire season was McCaffrey who had bilateral Achilles tendonitis and a torn PCL.

Which means the only major additions the 49ers will have this year are McCaffrey, assuming he stays healthy, and a bunch of rookies.

If McCaffrey plays like he did in 2023, the 49ers offense will be excellent, but the defense still could struggle if it has to start three rookies on the D-line. And there's no guarantee McCaffrey ever will be dominant again. He'll turn 29 in June.

Any 49ers optimism for 2025 assumes that lots of rookies will play well this year.

Forgive me if I have my doubts.

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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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