Summer series: San Francisco 49ers

By: Josh Frey-Sam

Are the San Francisco 49ers pushing or retooling? Your answer might depend on which side of the ball you’re looking at.

The Niners, by most accounts, had a rough off-season. They waved goodbye to some pillars on both sides of the ball, but especially on defence, where linebacker Dre Greenlaw, safety Talanoa Hufunga and cornerback Charvarius Ward all walked in free agency.

They’ve replaced their free agents with draft picks and young, lesser-known talents. And yet, San Fran is still the fourth-oldest team in the NFL, with an average age of 26.54.

“It kind of feels like two teams in a sense. There’s Robert Saleh’s team — the defence — which is brand new… and it feels like that team is on a different timeline,” said beat writer Grant Cohn. “They’re not expected to carry this team maybe at all this season, but by 2026, this could be a top-five defence in the league, considering what Robert Saleh can do and what the potential of (rookies) Mykel Williams and Nick Martin and all these guys. They’re almost on a two or three-year plan, the defence.”

“Meanwhile, this feels like a make-or-break year for the offence,” Cohn added. “Not only does it need to be good, it needs to carry the team. If this team’s gonna go anywhere, it needs to be because of veterans like Trent (Williams) and Christian (McCaffrey) and (Kyle) Juszczyk and (George) Kittle — all of these guys who have been here for so long.”

Welcome to the Back Bacon Brief summer series, where I talk to a local media member from all 32 NFL teams to get an all-encompassing preview about each club heading into the 2025-26 season.

Today, we look at the San Francisco 49ers, and I spoke with beat writer Grant Cohn (@grantcohn on X) to find out everything going on in Santa Clara.

You can listen to the full interview here.

San Francisco 49ers off-season

The Niners are certainly less talented as a collective than they have been over the last half-decade, but there is still a consensus feeling that their remaining core and coaching staff should be good enough to reach the playoffs.

“I think there is a ton of pressure on Kyle Shanahan,” Cohn said. “You’re running it back yet again with your guys, who know your system, so show that that’s the right thing to do — carry the team, be an elite offence…”

The funny part about the offence is I’m not sure how to feel about it.

The pessimistic way to look at it is: they lost guard Aaron Banks, Christian McCaffrey is coming off an injury-riddled season and is another year older, Brandon Aiyuk’s return from a torn ACL is unknown, second-year receiver Ricky Pearsall — who many pundits have marked as a breakout candidate — is dealing with another hamstring injury, newly signed Demarcus Robinson is facing a suspension and Jauan Jennings — who is effectively the team’s WR1 — is unhappy with his current contract.

The optimistic way to look at it is: CMC is reportedly as healthy as he’s been in over a year, they still have George Kittle and Brock Purdy, and if Jennings’ contract can get sorted and Pearsall can stay on the field, they should have enough firepower to stay afloat until they get reinforcements and the defence catches up.

Cohn also believes there’s some added motivation after last year’s disappointment.

“Last year, they seemed so… casual about it. Like, ‘Been around, been to the Super Bowl twice — we know what it takes. We’re exhausted and old. We’ll get there and we’ll flip the switch in November,’ and they never did. This year, I think they’re a little more humble about the process,” he said.

The other thing working in the Niners’ favour is they appear to have a historically favourable schedule that will see them play 13 games against teams who did not reach the playoffs in 2024.

That’s one of the main reasons many of us have this team reaching the playoffs.

However, Cohn sided with under 10.5 wins on this team — leaned toward a 9-8 season — and part of his reason made me raise my eyebrows, and will perhaps do the same for those who are looking at drafting CMC in fantasy this season:

“The defence could be rough early in the season,” he said. “And then, I know we’re thinking the offence is going to be good, but Aiyuk won’t be back yet, don’t know what’s gonna happen with Jennings, and I’m just not expecting McCaffrey to ever have a stretch of dominance really ever again.”

Which brings me to my final point on this Niners squad.

Shanahan is entering Year 9 as the Niners’ bench boss, and while he remains a coach who would be scooped up immediately if he were ever fired, I can’t help but feel his seat is a little warmer than most think, and that he’s a sleeper candidate to lose his job if the Niners don’t reach the playoffs for the second year in a row.

Here’s my issue with Shanahan: he entered the head coaching ranks in a similar way that Sean McVay did — a young, elite, innovative offensive mind — and had a ton of success with it early on, but he appears to get in his own way in the biggest games and hasn’t evolved in recent years.

Cohn didn’t totally rule it out of the realm of possibilities, but he noted that it’s probably a long shot.

“Firing him is expensive,” he said. “Really, what they would do is probably promote Robert Saleh.

“Here’s how it would work: Kyle’s offence struggles. The team misses the playoffs. The defence shows promise, improves as the season goes on. The league notices. Multiple teams in the league reach out to Saleh for head coach interviews… the Niners are nervous — they’re down on Kyle, they’re high on Saleh, and they say, ‘We can’t afford to lose Saleh a second time, becuase we’re not going to get him back, so we got to do something drastic.’”

In reality, it would need to be a disastrous season — another six-or-fewer-win season — for Shanahan to be fired.

“I don’t know if the Yorks (Niners ownership) have the cojones. It would be kind of interesting,” Cohn added. “It just seems like the Yorks are real comfortable with the situation they have right now.”

Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.

Josh