of san francisco 49ers It was embarrassing sunday night football by buffalo bills. There's no other way to sugar coat it. Kyle Shanahan and his team, who were dominant in all three phases of the game, not only lost by 25 points, but their opponents ran too easily, forcing Mitchell Trubisky to come off the bench and allowing Josh Allen to take a victory lap. I felt humiliated.
There's no question the Bills are a great team with Super Bowl potential, but the 49ers should have been as well. They are currently 5-7 and their season is effectively over with the news that Christian McCaffrey will likely miss the remainder of the season with a PCL injury. Instead of looking at this team as another in the NFC's hierarchy, we now wonder if injuries, age, and a breakdown in Shanahan's system are what caused the 49ers' window to slam shut, and perhaps We need to think about what is more important and whether there is a way to solve it. How to open it again?
49ers' precipitous decline
A lot has been said about San Francisco's offensive woes this season, and it certainly happened. Losing McCaffrey for most of 2024 is something the team is struggling to deal with, but this team also has a down year from Brandon Aiyuk and a significant regression from Brock Purdy, who moved from the No. 3 spot on offense. I am also fighting. He will be 15th in the NFL scoring rankings in 2024 from a year ago.
While the offense gets most of the headlines, it's the 49ers' defensive collapse that will be most serious in 2024. Compared to a year ago, the team is, well, weaker. San Francisco has always run a fairly basic but highly effective defensive system. He bends to the pass in the middle of the field and closes down in the red zone to prevent scoring. On the other hand, they consistently boast one of the best run-stopping units in the NFL, ranking in the top five from 2020 to 2023.
This year, that has collapsed. The team is conceding 6.9 more goals per game than in 2023, and as a result, the team has dropped from third to 25th in the league in goals conceded. During that time, they plummeted down the league standings. This was reflected in the loss of both phases of their defense, plummeting from 3rd to 15th in the league against the run. While it's fair to blame some of this decline on injuries, there's another part that isn't talked about enough.
San Francisco has drafted badly the last few years.
If you look at the foundation that made the 49ers so dominant, it was the absolute excellence of their mid-round drafts early in Shanahan's tenure. San Francisco outperformed any team after the first day, essentially filling its roster with stars from Day 2 and 3 of the NFL Draft. For three years, from 2017 to 2020, their mid-round drafts will tell you who their key starters and key contributors are.
- George Kittle (5th round, 2017)
- DJ Jones (6th round, 2017)
- Fred Warner (3rd round, 2018)
- Dre Greenlaw (5th round, 2019)
These are all outstanding players. Additionally, the 49ers have found dozens of valuable short-term contributors to strengthen their roster, who have since moved on to other teams. However, it has been a drought for San Francisco since the 2021 NFL Draft.
There's been a lot of talk about finding Brock Purdy in the seventh round of the 2022 NFL Draft, and everyone has a collective amnesia that this team has struggled to find anyone of note outside of Purdy. are. Of the 34 players the team drafted from 2021 to 2024, Purdy is the only one who looks like a star, and Talanoa Hufanga is the only other player who looks like a real player.
This led to a serious drain on resources to the 49ers. They continued with a turn-and-burn roster approach of letting players go and drafting to replace them, but the problem is they simply stopped drafting well. As a result, injuries caused a lot of decline and a lot of the magic was taken away from him.
difficult to see in reality Anyone A player who currently appears destined to be a star within the 49ers system. Ricky Pearsall It was done While he develops into a decent receiver, he simply doesn't seem to have as much of an impact on the organization as Deebo Samuel or Brandon Aiyuk. On the other hand, the defensive side of the ball is lacking. Anyone Someone who seems poised for greatness.
Drafting Purdy was an ideal cover for the 49ers to avoid criticism for acquiring Trey Lance with the No. 3 pick in the 2021 trade, but Purdy stands out as an example of San Francisco's draft brilliance. The reality is that they drafted very poorly for three years in a row.
time is catching up with them
The 49ers enter the 2024 NFL season ranked fifth-oldest in the league with an average age of 26.88 years. The problem the team currently faces is that they are aging and taking a hit at their most important position.
Trent Williams continues to keep the offensive line afloat and is playing on borrowed time at the moment. Williams is destined to be a Hall of Fame left tackle, but at 36 years old, he realistically only has one or two more years left at most. The offensive line will decline precipitously if he leaves, and we've already seen the 49ers not be very good at both pass production and run blocking this season.
At this point, it's impossible to know what the future holds for Christian McCaffrey. Wear and tear is starting to catch up with him, and with over 1,300 carries and over 200 receptions, his ability to remain effective is becoming increasingly questionable.
Leonard Floyd, George Kittle, Kyle Juszczyk, DeVondre Campbell — all starters over the age of 30 without solid backup plans in place.
If this team is struggling and As they begin to decline, there is little beyond hope that they can turn everything around.
There's also the issue of Shanahan's crimes.
Shanahan's West Coast offense, once considered the gold standard for offensive innovation, is starting to lose its luster. It's not just happening in San Francisco, it's happening in every branch of his coaching tree.
Here are teams running variations of the Shanahan offense under the guidance of their former coordinator. all He will struggle to score consistently in 2024.
- texans:23.7 points (12th place)
- 49ers: 22.5 points (15th place)
- Rams 21.2 points (20th place)
- dolphin:19.3 points (24th place)
Meanwhile, the NFL's top scoring teams, the Lions, Bills and Ravens, use either Erhard Perkins or Air Coryell. Defenses learned how to counter Shanahan's offense by increasing athleticism at linebacker, increasing lateral speed, and shutting down explosive plays after the catch. I went back to driving the ball inside on the run and setting up deep passes in the air.
It's not an overnight switch, and if this trend continues, it's hard to see how the 49ers can rebuild their offense and hang.
The 49ers are still a good team, but it's getting harder and harder to see the path forward.
The severe damage suffered by San Francisco cannot be ignored. This goes beyond the simple expression, “Everyone's in tatters this time of year.” Considering how severely the injury affected the team.
That being said, it's hard to predict what the 49ers' next step will be, even if they're healthy. Age is catching up with them, bad drafts are catching up with them, plans are getting stale, and it's starting to become unclear whether Brock Purdy is even there. the man. Time may prove this wrong, but Kyle Shanahan's team is starting to look like it's going backwards, and there's no way to stop the downward spiral.
The NFC West remains a weak division. There is absolutely a way for this team to get back to the playoffs and make an impact again. But for now, the 49ers appear to be on the path to decline like the Cowboys and Bengals, rather than taking the next step like the Bills and Lions. That is the reality right now.
