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Will the 49ers be Better or Worse in 2024?

Let's say the 49ers bring back the same group of players next season. Will that team be better or worse than the current team that has lost three games in a row? Let's go through the roster.
Grant Cohn|
Will the 49ers be Better or Worse in 2024?
Will the 49ers be Better or Worse in 2024?

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers like to pretend that their Super Bowl window never will close.

This season is supposed to be the 49ers' year to win the Super Bowl -- everyone said that when they were 5-0. But now they're on a three-game losing streak, and a loss this Sunday to the Jaguars would put the season in crisis. And if Trent Williams misses lots of time with his ankle injury, which seems unlikely but possible, the season could go off the rails, and the 49ers could miss the playoffs.

Let's say they miss the playoffs. What would they do? They'd probably fire Steve Wilks, hire a new defensive coordinator and "run it back," as they have so many times before. Meaning they wouldn't make any major changes. They'd scapegoat one guy and replace him. Then they'd bring back most of the usual suspects just to prove they've always been a championship caliber group that simply has been the victim of misfortune.

Let's say the 49ers bring back the same group of players next season. Will that team be better or worse than the current team that has lost three games in a row? Let's go through the roster.

Trent Williams will be 36.

Kyle Juszczyk will be 33.

Arik Armstead will be 31.

Javon Hargrave will be 31.

George Kittle will be 31.

Christian McCaffrey will be 28, which is old for a running back.

Deebo Samuel will be 28, which also is old for a wide back.

Charvarius Ward will be 28, which also is old for a cornerback.

Nick Bosa will be 27, which isn't particularly old for a defensive end, so maybe he'll bounce back and become the dominant player he once was. Or maybe he'll continue his current trajectory. He's on pace for 6 sacks this season.

It seems like the 49ers are getting old and need to break up this group. Unfortunately for them, they've drafted horribly the past two seasons, with the exception of Brock Purdy. 

The 49ers need a great draft next year. Otherwise, the 2024 49ers will be significantly worse than the current team.

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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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