The San Francisco 49ers have established a strong culture inside their locker room. But last season was a different story. After years of chasing a championship and investing heavily to achieve that goal, the team finished with a disappointing 6-11 record.
This offseason became an opportunity for the 49ers to reset. With the reality of quarterback Brock Purdy soon becoming one of the NFL's highest-paid players, the team began shedding future financial commitments. As a result, the 49ers remained relatively quiet in free agency while other teams aggressively pursued top talent.
That restraint led to criticism from fans, who accused owner Jed York of being "cheap."
"I've been called worse," York quipped Tuesday at the NFL's annual meeting in Florida.
But the decision wasn't York's alone. It was a collective call—one that the 49ers knew they'd have to make eventually after years of deferring financial consequences. Instead of adding high-priced free agents, the team parted ways with several of its own key contributors.
"I anticipated it," head coach Kyle Shanahan admitted on Tuesday. "I've known it's coming for a while, but no matter what you're anticipating or ready for, it's still not very much fun. I'm going through it.
"A lot of guys you care about, a lot of good players to see go, but it's part of this business. It happens to everyone at some time, and that's just where we're at right now."
However, Shanahan wanted to make one thing clear: the 49ers' expectations haven't changed. Unlike last year, when the focus was on rebounding from a Super Bowl loss, this year's emphasis is on playing better football, starting from the ground up.
"I don't think it's about lowering expectations," Shanahan explained. "It's kind of the position your team's in. We lost the Super Bowl in overtime before, last year. That's all anyone can think about [last offseason]. The offseason, you're not even thinking about. You're thinking about getting to Week 1, and that's kind of how it was for us last year when we took our shot.
"This year, we had a bad year. We didn't do good. We didn't make the playoffs. So all we're talking about is how do we get back to playing good football. And we've known we lost a number of players, but what we look at here is, I don't think about, necessarily, the season's expectations. I think about how good we can get in the draft, how many people we can add in that.
"Then you try to build it throughout phase one, phase two, phase three."
Shanahan emphasized that the team is locked in on steady improvement rather than dwelling on past failures or future expectations.
"It's all about practicing, getting back to just focusing on that, not focusing on trying to make up for a Super Bowl loss, try to make up for anything," Shanahan continued. "It's about becoming the best football team you can be and nothing else. And I do believe when we get to Week 1, I believe everyone in our building will be confident that we can win that Sunday. And I believe we'll be that the next week.
"And that's the goal for me, to try to practice and build a team where we genuinely believe every Sunday we have a chance to win. And if you can do that one week at a time, then you never know where it ends up."
The disappointment of 2024 makes Shanahan more eager than ever to return to work.
"I want to get to work more now than I probably have in a long time," he admitted. "I can't wait until our players get back. I feel like we've been away from them too long. Having all January off was different. It was nice to get a little bit more rest, but I know we're itching more to get back to phase one.
"I think we'll have a hell of a turnout with all of our guys, just talking to them, and we're ready to get back to work and find a way that we can go into Week 1 confident as hell that we can win that game."
The challenge of preparing for the 2025 season will be even greater with so many new faces on the roster.
"We have guys who know how to work the right way, and football means everything to them," Shanahan said. "But half of our team hasn't seen that. So I think it's important that we still go out and prove that to each other every single day, starting in phase one."
In previous years, the mindset differed after winning seasons ending in postseason heartbreak.
"Where, in years past, it's, 'All right, that last game was a tough one. Let's get to OTAs, let's make sure everyone's healthy, and let's get to training camp and start going,'" Shanahan explained. "I don't look at it that way.
"We have too many guys who don't know what we've been through over these last five, eight years, and we've got to show them that in phase one, and how we work, and how we go about things, and really reestablish the hard work that we earned when we came into this."