Did the Niners do enough to compete for the Division Crown?

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
Rams and Seahawks won the Super Bowl with their current front office. Can you say the same about this team? This team is #3 at best. Only the hopeless Cardinals are worse than us.

But the 49ers have won division crowns and gotten further than both of those front offices recently. What are you talking about?

To answer of question, absolutely. Every year is different. The Seahawks got worse, and the rams got better. We'll see!

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
Rams and Seahawks won the Super Bowl with their current front office. Can you say the same about this team? This team is #3 at best. Only the hopeless Cardinals are worse than us.

Seahawks lost a lot of coaching talent. Their weakness is on the offensive side. I hope their offense regresses big time this year.

Originally posted by genus49:

Originally posted by dlance:
I feel like the Rams made some big move to improve.
The 49er kind of stay the same. I think the WR are better. Most of the draft pick are situational player that will not push for starting time. I like Romello Height but he is not a full time play at DE. Maybe he can play at OLB but they really don't play with 3 LB on field maybe they will start ? OL is the same but getting older. Maybe Robert Jones helps at Guard ? The draft picks on OL are development and should not play this year. I really feel they are about the same team with better WR and a little more depth on DL. Can they win it all, only if everything falls just right.

Rams brought in both KC corners. What other big moves have they made?

49ers stayed the same?? Especially the Rams played us so beat up that simply not having everyone injured last year would move the needle more than their corner addition. That doesn't even take into account signing Mike Evans and trading for Osa.

We don't know how much impact Stribling will have but I can guarantee that Ty Simpson playing meaningful snaps for the Rams next year would be a net loss for the Rams. Stribling would not do that for the 49ers.

If the Rams are playing TY Simpson they are finished for the year.
I watched all the game last year and I never thought wow if 49er had better WR they totally could have won that game. Better WR is not going to hurt.
I feel the DL depth is the only thing that can maybe help this team improve. I'm not down on the team I just do not see and great improvement coming this year. Glreenlaw will miss games. Trent Williams will miss games. Bosa will probably miss some games. Kittle and Even will most likely miss some games. Is Brock Purdy going to play 17 games? The OL didn't real improve unless Robert Jones is really good and plays every game ? I watch zero Indiana game is Kaelon Black a game changing RB. Is he going to push CMC for minute ? I don't see any major changes or improvement in the team. I think it will be a lot like last year. 10 to 12 win trying to make the playoff. I hope I'm wrong. I hope they win 17 game and cost into the playoffs.

Silly question

If the niners werent essentially bringing back the same offensive line

Remember they were leapfrogged by two teams who ended up in the nfc championship game

Depends on injuries … ours or division opponents.

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
Rams and Seahawks won the Super Bowl with their current front office. Can you say the same about this team? This team is #3 at best. Only the hopeless Cardinals are worse than us.

Why ask a question you know the answer to? We haven't won a SB with any front office since 1994. It doesn't mean we can't win with this one.

The issue we have is how do you make the change to curb Kyle's power over the roster? If you attempt to bring in a GM who will call the shots and pick his players for Kyle you're risking killing a pretty good dynamic.

Kyle for all his faults does a great job coaching(no matter how some on here want to argue otherwise) clearly drafting is not something he excels in. If you can guarantee we can bring in a legit GM and he and Kyle get along incredibly well and don't damage what's working I'd be all in favor of it.

But Kyle is a strong personality. He knows what he wants and he knows what he doesn't whether right or wrong. If another GM comes in and ignores that it won't end well.

Ideally Kyle realizes the best thing for him is to bring in a stronger GM. I felt that way before the draft and I certainly feel that way after that draft.

But once again...we've come VERY close to getting it done and this front office HAS put the right players on the field to get it done. A mix of errors unfortunately ended with us not winning.

You can look at key injuries each year we went deep in the playoffs to possibly costing us the Lombardi.

2019 is probably the least likely but I think having Weston Richburg in the game helps swing things our way, though I blame that loss more on the refs.
2021 if McGlinchey is playing we're picking up that 2nd and short and if we do that I believe we go on to win that game and beating the Bengals for the SB W
2022 Purdy doesn't get hurt and we're running the table.
2023 Greenlaw or Feliciano stay healthy and we win

Those are basically things totally out of control of the front office. Just crap luck. Rams btw only have a SB win with that regime because of our F ups in that game AND us taking out the Packers so they could host the NFCCG in their warm stadium. They weren't going into GB and beating the Packers had we not taken them out.

Seattle gets a ton of respect for what they built but they also got the NFC on a super down year either cuz of injuries or other things and their great GM went almost a whole decade of horror show drafts. Sean Payton completely saved their ass with that Russell Wilson trade.

OL improvement will come with the new RB(Black) in the backfield. If he can get that 1st down on 3rd and short(or even 4th down) the offense will gain another 2 minutes of possession. He was carrying half the defense in the senior bowl. Had a good game against Penn State too. Long term he'll replace Juice-maybe even this year. Heck of a blocker.

Originally posted by dlance:

Originally posted by genus49:

Originally posted by dlance:
I feel like the Rams made some big move to improve.
The 49er kind of stay the same. I think the WR are better. Most of the draft pick are situational player that will not push for starting time. I like Romello Height but he is not a full time play at DE. Maybe he can play at OLB but they really don't play with 3 LB on field maybe they will start ? OL is the same but getting older. Maybe Robert Jones helps at Guard ? The draft picks on OL are development and should not play this year. I really feel they are about the same team with better WR and a little more depth on DL. Can they win it all, only if everything falls just right.

Rams brought in both KC corners. What other big moves have they made?

49ers stayed the same?? Especially the Rams played us so beat up that simply not having everyone injured last year would move the needle more than their corner addition. That doesn't even take into account signing Mike Evans and trading for Osa.

We don't know how much impact Stribling will have but I can guarantee that Ty Simpson playing meaningful snaps for the Rams next year would be a net loss for the Rams. Stribling would not do that for the 49ers.

If the Rams are playing TY Simpson they are finished for the year.
I watched all the game last year and I never thought wow if 49er had better WR they totally could have won that game. Better WR is not going to hurt.
I feel the DL depth is the only thing that can maybe help this team improve. I'm not down on the team I just do not see and great improvement coming this year. Glreenlaw will miss games. Trent Williams will miss games. Bosa will probably miss some games. Kittle and Even will most likely miss some games. Is Brock Purdy going to play 17 games? The OL didn't real improve unless Robert Jones is really good and plays every game ? I watch zero Indiana game is Kaelon Black a game changing RB. Is he going to push CMC for minute ? I don't see any major changes or improvement in the team. I think it will be a lot like last year. 10 to 12 win trying to make the playoff. I hope I'm wrong. I hope they win 17 game and cost into the playoffs.

Which game are you referring to?

The first game vs the Rams we won incredibly under manned on offense and missing Nick Bosa on defense.

The second Rams game was the biggest discrepancy I've seen in regards to injury list. Rams were incredibly healthy, meanwhile we were missing a ton of players. If you're talking about that second game then certainly WR was far from our issues in that game.

While I would be stupid to ignore the fact that we haven't been able to stay healthy for the large part of this regime I always find it silly to project injuries. What happens if Matt Stafford gets hurt? What happens if Seattle's injury luck flips? Why are we talking about what ifs when it comes to injuries that may or may not happen?

We just went 12-5 with a decimated roster. We've made it to the NFCCG with QB3(granted he ended up being hte best of that bunch) but the point is while the team can't overcome just insane amounts of injuries to key players they have shown the ability to battle with them.

Originally posted by genus49:
Which game are you referring to?

The first game vs the Rams we won incredibly under manned on offense and missing Nick Bosa on defense.

The second Rams game was the biggest discrepancy I've seen in regards to injury list. Rams were incredibly healthy, meanwhile we were missing a ton of players. If you're talking about that second game then certainly WR was far from our issues in that game.

While I would be stupid to ignore the fact that we haven't been able to stay healthy for the large part of this regime I always find it silly to project injuries. What happens if Matt Stafford gets hurt? What happens if Seattle's injury luck flips? Why are we talking about what ifs when it comes to injuries that may or may not happen?

We just went 12-5 with a decimated roster. We've made it to the NFCCG with QB3(granted he ended up being hte best of that bunch) but the point is while the team can't overcome just insane amounts of injuries to key players they have shown the ability to battle with them.

Exactly!!!! That is a hilarious question. Even if we are extremely injured, we have beaten both the Rams and the Seahawks (and I'm talking all pros). The first game when we beat the Seahawks, we did not have Kittle for 3+ quarters who burned them on the first drive, or Brandon Aiyuk (who hasn't had a problem with the Seahawks cbs) and a few other players. Against the Rams is not even close. We had a bunch of backups and third stringers playing, and still beat their ass.

Even if we are mildly healthy, we have the best team in the division. The Seahawks offense is not that good and Sam Darnold isn't either, with his propensity for turnovers as shown by leading the league as well as his failures under pressure and being carried by a healthy defense and offense.

We had a way better offseason with the additions of Evans, Osa and Greenlaw not to mention getting back a lot of our players from injury including Bosa and Warner.

According to NFL Spin Zone, the Niners have the easiest 2026 strength of schedule in the NFL West
Cards: .538, 4th
Rams: .516, 13th
Hawks: .514, 14th
Niners: .497, 18th

They won 12 games +1 playoff game last season despite half of their team being injured and the lack of depth. They are going to get those injured players back, They added 3 starters in free agency with Evans, Osa, and Greenlaw. 4 starters if you include Robert Jones being the left guard. And then you count on guys going into year 2 improving. Remembers the Niners had like 6 rookies on the defensive side of the football. So even without the draft included this team has gotten way better. Just got to look at the Dline and WR room alone. Went into the draft last season with no starting DT's and 1 starting DE. We were countinng on Jennngs being WR1 week 1 last season.

After losing to the Seahawks by 35 we all knew that we needed a new center, a new left guard and at least a new safety and all those players had to be really good.

Instead of doing that we adressed the receiver group with 2 old guys and a guy that no one expected in round 2 but the thing is that last season our passing game wasn't bad at all despite Kittle and Pearsall missing 15 games combined:

-240.6 ypg (#4)
-68.1% comp percentage (#3)
-96.4 rating (#9)

I don't even know if the receivers we got are good enough to make those numbers even better.

However our running game was garbage last season:

-105.3 ypg (#25)
-3.8 yards per carry (#30)

Against the Seahawks we averaged 3.6 yards per carry in 3 games.

We had to get better at the O-line to be able to run against the Seahawks and force them to play with 8 in the box and then kill them with our passing game because they could stop our running game with light boxes and because of that they also could stop our passing game with 4 or 5 men in the secondary.

I get that on defense they tried to get a better pass-rush with Osa and Height and Bosa will be back but we have the same issue with this regime because every off-season they ignore the O-line to get receivers and pass-rushers and after every playoff loss since 2019 all we talk about is the O-line, O-line and more O-line.

About the safety group our starters are still Mustapha and Brown. Enough said.

We keep doing the same expecting different results.....well I don't even know if this regime is really expecting a different result anymore.

Originally posted by Bluesbro:
Depends on injuries … ours or division opponents.

this!

Originally posted by Monsterniner:
After losing to the Seahawks by 35 we all knew that we needed a new center, a new left guard and at least a new safety and all those players had to be really good.

Instead of doing that we adressed the receiver group with 2 old guys and a guy that no one expected in round 2 but the thing is that last season our passing game wasn't bad at all despite Kittle and Pearsall missing 15 games combined:

-240.6 ypg (#4)
-68.1% comp percentage (#3)
-96.4 rating (#9)

I don't even know if the receivers we got are good enough to make those numbers even better.

However our running game was garbage last season:

-105.3 ypg (#25)
-3.8 yards per carry (#30)

Against the Seahawks we averaged 3.6 yards per carry in 3 games.

We had to get better at the O-line to be able to run against the Seahawks and force them to play with 8 in the box and then kill them with our passing game because they could stop our running game with light boxes and because of that they also could stop our passing game with 4 or 5 men in the secondary.

I get that on defense they tried to get a better pass-rush with Osa and Height and Bosa will be back but we have the same issue with this regime because every off-season they ignore the O-line to get receivers and pass-rushers and after every playoff loss since 2019 all we talk about is the O-line, O-line and more O-line.

About the safety group our starters are still Mustapha and Brown. Enough said.

We keep doing the same expecting different results.....well I don't even know if this regime is really expecting a different result anymore.

Really? I'm sure most of us would love to have All Pros come in and replace who we had vs Seattle in that game but take a step back and think.

We had a very small margin of error heading into that game with our injuries and the rest disadvantage in that game. They took the opening kick back for a TD. Any moral bump we could've had going into that game to hype ourselves into thinking we could win disappeared in seconds of the game starting.

Replacements at Center, LG and S aren't changing that game.

However we lost a 10 point game for the #1 seed that put us in some of that disadvantage. I would say the additions we made and the losses they had certainly could've moved the needle on that game.

Adding guys like Evans, Kirk and Stribling make our passing game a lot harder to defend. That in turn opens up things in the running game. Adding Osa and Greenlaw makes us more stout on defense. Getting Bosa, Warner and Mykel back should also be a substantial boost.

Kyle Shanahan is too smart to keep getting worked scheme wise. We will have to see if the players can stay healthy and break through Seattle but they lost a very good OC and their playoff bellcow RB. Can Darnold keep playing well with the new guys? We shall see but it's not simply last year's Seattle defense vs last years 49ers skill players and OL.