All 49ers

SI's Albert Breer: Demise of 2025 49ers has Been Greatly Exagerrated

It seems like the 49ers are counting on Christian McCaffrey and a bunch of rookies to turn a 6-11 team into a playoff team.
Grant Cohn|
Jul 27, 2022; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan (left) and general manager John Lynch watches the players during Training Camp at the SAP Performance Facility near Levi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Stan Szeto-Imagn Images
Jul 27, 2022; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan (left) and general manager John Lynch watches the players during Training Camp at the SAP Performance Facility near Levi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Stan Szeto-Imagn Images | Stan Szeto-Imagn Images

In this story:

San Francisco 49ers

While some people think the 49ers offseason has been absolutely abysmal, others think the criticism has been overblown.

Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer is one of the others. Today, he gave an interesting perspective on the 49ers' current organizational reset.

"While a good chunk of the core of the 2023 Super Bowl team is gone now, the Niners did get ahead of a few potential losses, signing Brandon Aiyuk (four years, $120 million) and Deommodore Lenoir (five years, $88.9 million) to long-term contracts, and Jauan Jennings (two years, $15.4 million) and Colton McKivitz (1 year, $5.85 million) to shorter-term deals," Breer wrote.

"That’s with Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, Trent Williams and Christian McCaffrey intact as All-Pro foundation pieces to build around, and with a big contract for Brock Purdy coming."

With all due respect to Breer, the 49ers had most of these players last season when they went 6-11. And while Trent Williams did miss the final seven games, they were just 5-5 with him. And he hasn't played a full season since 2013.

In addition, Aiyuk probably won't make much of an impact this season -- he's going to miss training camp and most likely the first month or two as he recovers from a torn ACL, MCL and meniscus.

So the main star the 49ers will get back this season is McCaffrey, who suffered bilateral Achilles' tendonitis and tore his PCL last season. Can he carry the offense like he did in 2023? He'll be 29 next season.

It seems like the 49ers are counting on McCaffrey and a bunch of rookies to turn a 6-11 team into a playoff team.

Sounds risky.

More 49ers news

Published
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.

Share on XFollow grantcohn
Home/News