Hicks to sign one-year tender

San Francisco 49ers fans are confident their team will emerge with a victory over the Dallas Cowboys this weekend, the opening weekend of the NFL playoffs. Kyle Shanahan's squad has become a bit of a sexy Wild Card pick. The Cowboys are favored by three points, and the Niners are the road team. They boarded a Dallas-bound plane after Friday's practice and enter the matchup with a lot of confidence. The 49ers also could be healthier than they have been all season. Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is still dealing with a thumb injury, but he delivered a gutsy performance in last weekend's regular-season finale against the Los Angeles Rams. He's just one of the

There's something significantly different about San Francisco 49ers on offense this week compared to where they were when they played the Green Bay Packers in Week 3 of the regular season. That difference is the role of wide receiver Deebo Samuel, whose emergence as a running back throughout the course of the season makes the 49ers more difficult to stop than they were when they fell 30-28 to the Packers at Levi's Stadium on September 26. Samuel had two carries for zero yards in that game, giving him a total of four carries for eight yards over his first three games. He had six total carries over his first nine games before exploding over the second half of the season to finish with 59 carries for 365 yards and eight touchdowns to go with his receiving stats of

It's time for NFL teams to start thinking about exercising the fifth-year options of their first-round picks in the 2019 NFL draft. That includes some pretty big names, like Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray. The window to exercise those options opened on Monday, with the deadline set for May 2. NFL Media analyst Marc Ross went through each first-round pick from 2019, voting "Yes" or "No" to indicate whether he feels their respective teams should exercise the fifth-year option. For the San Francisco 49ers, that means looking at the possibilities for defensive end Nick Bosa. This one seems like a no-brainer. Bosa is the team's best pass rusher and its best player on the defensive side of the ball. He is a foundational piece on defense, and the unit's

In the waning seconds of Week 3, Aaron Rodgers drove a dagger through the 49ers' secondary to secure a comeback win and expose San Francisco's vulnerable backfield. That loss sent the Niners careening towards a 2-4 record after an optimistic start, with opposing quarterbacks averaging a passer rating of nearly 110 during their losing skid. Even after that rough patch, the 49ers have continued to struggle against elite passers and receivers, like the Bengals victory in which Joe Burrow still hooked up with Tee Higgins and Ja'Marr Chase for a combined 191 yards and two touchdowns. But 49ers defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans has made savvy adjustments in the backfield, and with players like Emmanuel Moseley getting healthy, they may have a better shot this time