The Current State of the 49ers

After six weeks the 49ers have a record of 3-3, as average as you can possibly get, but this roster is far from average. Over the last five years, the 49ers have had one of the top rosters in all of football, why are they struggling through six games in 2024?

Although the 49ers stand at the top of the NFC West for the first time this season, there are still a lot of concerns. For the first time in years, the last concern on this team is the quarterback. Although, “geniuses” with their own TV show like Colin Cowherd think 14 quarterbacks are better than Brock Purdy, that is far from the truth. 

Many have always thought Purdy is only good because of the yards after catch (YAC) his pass catchers get, which can’t be true because the 49ers rank last in YAC through six weeks in 2024, so maybe that's the problem. 

The 49ers desperately miss the reigning offensive player of the year Christian Mccaffrey, who is dealing with Achilles tendinitis in both of his legs. The 49ers are not missing his running ability, mostly due to the coming out party of third year running back JP Mason, who has been at the top of the NFL in rushing since taking over for Mccaffrey. They are mostly missing his receiving ability, and his elite ability to get YAC. Last year, the 49ers ranked #1 in red zone offense due to Mccaffrey’s ability to get open in short yardage, this year without Mccaffrey, they rank last in red zone offense. 

Luckily for San Francisco, McCaffrey will return by early November after the 49er's bye week. Unfortunately, the two toughest games for the 49ers are right before McCaffrey will be able to play. This coming Sunday the 49ers host the Kansas City Chiefs for a “Super Bowl rematch.” Since Kyle Shanahan took over as head coach, he has yet to defeat Taylor’s Team. 

From now on the 49ers need to treat almost every game as a must win because of their early season struggles. No game is harder than the Chiefs, who are 5-0 and coming off a bye week. Meaning they had a whole extra week to prepare for this. The 49ers are coming off what some like to call “a mini bye week” after playing Thursday night football. 

This game means a lot mostly to the 49ers, as they need to prove they can beat Patrick Mahomes, who needs no introduction. 49ers superstar Nick Bosa said, “they need to get the monkey off their back” and defeat the Chiefs. The 49ers will be at home, but that doesn’t mean the face of the Chiefs isn’t going to travel (in a plane of course) and watch this game.

If the 49ers knock the monkey off their back and defeat Kansas City, they will move to 4-3 and be above .500 for the first time since being 1-0 earlier this year. The next week they take on the Dallas Cowboys, who might not be such a hard game after all, as the 49ers have owned the Cowboys for the past three years. 

Running backs Jordan Mason and Issac Guerendo will need to be at the top of their game the next two weeks to get past these great teams. Last week against Seattle the 49ers rushed for 228 yards, which is much more like them. In their loss to the Cardinals the week before, the 49ers only rushed for 153 yards, which is far off what they need to do. If they can efficiently run the ball against these really good defenses, that will only set up more opportunities for their elite pass catchers. We all hope Kyle Shanahan knows that too. 

If the 49ers can defeat the Chiefs and Cowboys in back-to-back weeks to move to 5-3 heading into the bye week getting McCaffrey back, the Super Bowl hopes are back up. 

All anyone is going to be looking for on Sunday is some singer in one of the very expensive suites at Levi's Stadium, but the only singer I care about is E-40 celebrating with the team after a big win.