Want to know why the 49ers went from Super Bowl contenders to a team facing a steep, uphill climb to make the playoffs?
The answer isn’t on the All-22 tape or in Kyle Shanahan’s coaches’ meetings.
I know Niners fans have erased the 2020 season (and perhaps the entire calendar year) from memory, and we’re all fortunate not to be reliving a global pandemic. But this 2024 Niners season has turned into a sequel to 2020, save for the long, forced trip to Arizona.
Yes, the Super Bowl hangover isn’t just mental; It’s physical, too
Sunday was the Niners’ 70th game since the start of the 2021 season. Yes, 20 games — 17 regular-season contests and three playoff games — every year will take a toll on anyone, especially when you factor in the ramped-up physicality of those late-season and post-season games.
So, is it any surprise that the Niners’ injury report looks like a Pro Bowl roster?
This is a sport of attrition, after all.
Of the Niners’ 10 highest-paid players per salary cap hit in 2024, every single one of them is sidelined or playing through a noticeable injury.
And for a team with a top-heavy roster in a salary-capped league, It’s looking downright insurmountable.
Trent Williams had to be “shot up” to play on an injured ankle against the Seahawks. The 36-year-old future Hall of Famer said he played at 65 percent. He looked it, too — which is to say that he was average at best against a not-so-great defense Sunday.
Charvarious Ward is out not because of injury — though he has been dealing with a groin issue all season, it seems — but rather to grieve the death of his one-year-old daughter. He obviously gets as much time away from the team as he needs.
Nick Bosa played through a hip injury on Sunday, and, whoops, he overcompensated for that injury and pulled his opposite oblique in the game. There’s a serious doubt around the Niners that he plays in what is a must-win game Sunday in Green Bay. (Yes, we’re onto this team’s fourth must-win game of the year. To their credit, they’ve won them all so far. Beating the Packers without Bosa might be a bridge too far, though.)
Fred Warner hasn’t looked the same since he rolled his ankle in Week 4.
Deebo Samuel hasn’t looked like his world-beating self at any point this season. He’s the worst running back in the NFL this season on average yards above exceptions — good for minus-1.5 yards per carry, per NFL Pro tracking. Samuel also looks slow coming out of his breaks — a dire sign for a receiver who was never good at beating press coverage, even in the salad days.
George Kittle, like Samuel, is a human wrecking ball. He missed Week 11’s game with a hamstring injury—the same injury that kept him out of Week 3. He’s been the Niners’ best player when he has played this season.
Christian McCaffrey is playing, but he’s not really back. Samuel might be the worst running back in the NFL this season, but McCaffrey (minus 1 yard per carry against expectation) is not far behind him. After sitting out for three months with Achilles tendinitis, there’s no pop, juice, or spark to his game. It’s fair to believe he needs time to round into form after the long layoff. Of course, time is the one thing the Niners don’t have.
Javon Hargrave is out for the season with a torn triceps.
Brandon Aiyuk is out for the season with a torn ACL and MCL in his right knee.
Dre Greenlaw has yet to play this season, as he recovers from a left Achilles tendon tear in the Super Bowl.
That’s the Niners’ 10 top-paid players against the cap — every player costing $5 million or more. All of them have something going on right now. You can’t win a division, conference, or league title like that.
(You could expand the list to 11 — Talanoa Hufanga is out with a wrist injury. Or you can view it as 13 out of the top 14, with Aaron Banks (calf) and Kyle Juszczyk (concussion protocol) rounding out that list… Surely , you get it by now.)
I understand that it’s football and that no one is 100 percent at this point in the season, but this level of injury is unquestionably unlucky.
For the Niners, what goes around comes around. Last season, the Niners were the fourth-most-fortunate team in football when it came to adjust games lost (as tracked by Aaron Schatz at FTN). It was a big reason the team had home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs — they tested their depth (which was just as bad, if not worse, to this season) far less than the average team.
Of course, that hasn’t been the case this season.
When you build a stars-and-scrubs roster and are left relying on said scrubs, it doesn’t inspire anyone to book a trip to New Orleans in February.
Do the Niners need more from their quarterback and the players on the field? Absolutely.
Does Shanahan need to adjust his offensive game plans to accommodate the lesser talents on the field and the diminished skillsets of some of those stars who are playing? You bet.
But at some point, fate has its say.
The Niners can fend it off for a while longer. Perhaps they even buck it long enough to make the playoffs for a fourth-straight season.
But the fact remains that the Niners went all-in on their big-money, veteran stars to get one last shot at a title inside this perceived window of contention, and they’ve crapped out.