Do y’all remember that band you grew up on always being good, playing high quality music, but then as everyone gets older and life changes, the music doesn’t sound the same?
That’s what the San Francisco 49ers feel like.
Amidst a year of injury, dysfunction, and just overall not feeling the same as the face-melting teams we typically associate with San Francisco, this season has been pushed to the brink of missing the playoffs. The Niners were met with a cold splash of reality on Sunday, losing 20-17 at home to the Seattle Seahawks, their first loss to Seattle since 2021. The loss dropped them to 5-5, but with losses to the Rams and Cardinals, they’re dead last in the division, in a year where they were supposed to once again be at the top of the conference.
Let’s go under the hood and figure out why exactly this team hasn’t been the same 49ers team we know.
The offense has been … weird
If you go by counting stats, the Niners’ offense has been one of the better ones in the sport. Second in yards per game, tied for eighth in points per game, fifth in EPA/play, and sixth in Success Rate. However, the offense hasn’t felt like it’s been easy to come by. When you watch a Kyle Shanahan offense in San Francisco, you’re normally operating under the assumption that they’ll be able to generate easy offense via the run game and in Yards After the Catch. The combination of Shanahan’s scheme and the MonStars (WRs Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk, TE George Kittle, RB Christian McCaffrey and FB Kyle Juszczyk) made it impossible to defend them. Any checkdown could be turned into an eight yard gain, and any eight yard gain could be a touchdown.
Well, the YAC hasn’t exactly been hitting the same this season. This season the Niners are 24th in total Yards after the Catch and and 25th in YAC/completion, per Pro Football Reference, way down from being first in the NFL in that same metric in 2023. The dynamic ability for every checkdown to be a threat has somewhat gone away this season for San Francisco, closing the margin for error this team has.
This margin gets especially close in the red zone, where the Niners have completely fallen apart. This season San Francisco is 15th in EPA per play in the red area and 14th in Success Rate, noticeably down from fifth in EPA per play and first in Success Rate in the red zone in 2023. As the MonStars have worn down due to injury (Kittle didn’t play in the loss to Seattle, McCaffrey is still getting back to 100%, Aiyuk is out for the season with a torn ACL, and Samuel has missed time with injury/sickness), the offense just hasn’t felt like they’ve been able to hit the easy buttons as often as they’ve been able to.
Take this play against Seattle, for example. Although San Francisco is a ways away from the end zone, you normally expect McCaffrey to make someone miss and get more than five yards. He’s running an option route and goes to the space, but once he’s there, doesn’t make anyone miss.
Compare this to 2023, where McCaffrey is running an option route again and has leverage to the outside and is able to turn this into a big positive gain. I’m not saying McCaffrey has lost a step, but the entire team’s inability to hit big on plays after the catch this season has made the margins a bit smaller this season.
I also think they haven’t been as able to beat man coverage as they used to be. Last season they shredded the little man coverage they faced, posting a 63.44 total EPA and 56.9% Positive Play Rate against man coverage (per Sports Information Solutions). This season, while still being in the top ten amongst NFL teams, they haven’t been nearly as potent. Through 10 games they’ve already had 100 passing attempts against man coverage (they had 106 of those attempts in 2023—total), and only generated a total EPA of 8.35 and a 45.7% Success Rate. Again, not numbers to turn your nose up at but absolutely not what we expect from this core of players.
This is where they miss Aiyuk and desperately need McCaffrey to return to what he was. They were able to shred man coverage because it meant you were leaving McCaffrey in isolated situations on a linebacker, or Aiyuk would shred on the outside. Last year, Aiyuk had an incredible 1.01 EPA per target against man coverage third in the entire NFL in that metric. He was behind George Kittle, who was at an absurd 1.11 EPA per target against man on 22 targets. This year, their best receiver against man is WR Jauan Jennings, who at a 0.69 isn’t bad, but there’s much more struggle this season. Even though some catches are being made, there’s much less explosion coming from this team.
Which brings us to the QB. Listen, I’m not doing Brock Purdy discourse in 2024. It’s pointless to continue to talk in the same circles we’ve been talking about him in for the last two years. What I will say is that he’s improved this year in his scrambling ability to mitigate some of the margin for error this season, but also can’t overcome those smaller margins by himself. Not every QB is Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen, and Purdy has to be helped out a bit.
There’s been a lot made about the Niners not changing protections or letting Purdy call audibles, but I just don’t think that’s the case. Purdy has the same amount of freedom as most other QBs in the NFL when it comes to “can”-ing plays (going from one playcall to the other playcall). The bigger problem here is an offensive line that hasn’t really played up to standard. Trent Williams is still good, and rookie Dominick Puni is promising at right guard, but everywhere else there are major holes. You can only scheme yourself away from a poorer offensive line for so long, and the Niners’ offense feels like they’re struggling to play the right notes together in critical areas.
The defensive brain drain has finally hit
For years, the San Francisco 49ers have been able to reload their defense after losing coordinators and quality players to injury or free agency. This year it hasn’t been the same case. Their defense has gone through major upheaval and “brain drain” on the defensive side of the ball that it’s finally taking a hit on the unit’s success. They’re currently 12th in defensive EPA per play allowed and 17th in Success Rate allowed, but those are both major steps back from being at or near the top of the league as we’re used to seeing them. The constant upheaval at the coordinator spot, going from Robert Saleh, to Demeco Ryans, to Steve Wilks to now Nick Sorensen and Brandon Staley crafting the defense has taken this well coached unit to one that makes a bit more mistakes than we’re used to seeing.
On top of that, the ability to rebuild and reload the defensive roster has taken some hits. This is their 2023 roster, via ESPN’s Bill Barnwell, and the amount of snaps they’ve played for the team in 2024. At some point the trend of always losing players has to take effect, and it looks like it has for the Niners.
What’s going on with the 49ers?
1) Last year’s defense has been shredded by injuries, departures, and aging. Veterans they brought in haven’t stood out (although Yetur Gross-Matos flashed last week). Mustapha has been a fun find, but lots of snaps for underwhelming vet FAs.
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell.com) 2024-11-19T22:20:57.305Z
A major sticking point has been their inability to get pressure outside of Nick Bosa. When Bosa is on the field, the Niners’ pressure rate is 35.4%, which would tie them with the Minnesota Vikings for 10th in the entire league. Without Bosa it drops to 28%, putting them in between the Arizona Cardinals and Jacksonville Jaguars, who are 29th and 30th in the league, respectively.
The motley crew of Leonard Floyd, Yetur Gross-Matos and Robert Beal haven’t been consistent enough to provide consistent pop next to Bosa, and it’s making their defense suffer. They also simply aren’t good enough against the run this year, which is more of a teambuilding thing than anything else. They’re 22nd in Rushing Success Rate allowed and 20th in EPA/rush allowed and even lower last year, both major drops from being second in both categories in 2021. They’ve struggled to find a true nose tackle after DJ Jones left in free agency (although rookie DT Evan Anderson has helped out in that area), and with the consistent brain drain starting to come through, they don’t have as much ability to overcome it this season. While the Niners’ offense has felt snakebitten by injury, their defense feels like some flaws in teambuilding coming home to roost.
Now, I’m not going to be the one to doom and gloom the Niners. It’s hard to say that a team with Kyle Shanahan as their head playcaller and the talent on offense is going to falter to end this season. However, they have games on the road against Green Bay, Arizona, Buffalo and Miami, along with home tilts against Detroit and the Los Angeles Rams to end the season. If they’re going to make the playoffs, it’ll have to be going through a murderer’s row of opponents to wrap this season up.
Even though it’s not all doom and gloom, it does feel like this is the final ride for this version of the Niners. And if it is, it’s less a grand finale, and more of a sad swan song.
