49ers’ title-chasing era faces real uncertainty after loss to rival Seahawks

The San Francisco 49ers are headed home from the playoffs early after being summarily dismissed by the division rival Seattle Seahawks on Saturday. The Niners were blown off the field by the Seahawks, losing 41-6 in a game that was never competitive. Seattle returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown and never looked back.

The Niners were probably fortunate to be in the divisional round to begin with, having upset the Philadelphia Eagles in the previous round despite dealing with a rash of injuries on both sides of the ball. A loss to the Seahawks was widely expected, given those injury issues. But going another year without a Super Bowl title for a team that has annually had one of the best rosters in the league unquestionably raises questions about the future.

San Francisco, during the Kyle Shanahan era, has routinely been among the best teams in the league. Whenever the Niners have had a healthy quarterback, they have been one of the most efficient and explosive offenses in football, and they have fielded defenses that mostly ranged from above average to excellent during most of that time as well. The exception to the latter rule has come in the last two years, when they whiffed on a coordinator hire, played undermanned for much of 2024 and then crumbled under the weight of injuries to their two best players in 2025.

Still, they have been one of the league’s most successful teams for the last seven years. Since 2019 — the first time Jimmy Garoppolo finished a full season as the starter — San Francisco is 72-45, tied for the sixth-best record in the league. The Niners have gone to the playoffs in five of those seven seasons, advancing to the conference championship game four times and the Super Bowl twice, losing to the Kansas City Chiefs both times. They have successfully transitioned from one quarterback (Garoppolo) to another (Brock Purdy) during this time, and they have done it despite blowing a significant amount of draft capital on the failed trade for Trey Lance.

The Niners are now set to move into a different era. Purdy is no longer on one of the cheapest contracts in the NFL, instead heading into the first season of the five-year, $265 million contract extension he signed last offseason. Big changes to the roster are sure to come, and it is fair to wonder whether San Francisco’s best chance to win the Super Bowl might already be in the rearview mirror, given the new financial landscape and the age — and now the injury history — of some of the key players from this era.

An offense in transition — and aging fast

Purdy is headed into his prime, as he will play next season at age 27. But his supporting cast is thinner than it was a couple of years ago, and some of the key pieces are aging and increasingly injured.

Deebo Samuel is no longer with the team, having decamped to Washington last offseason. Brandon Aiyuk missed the entire 2025 season and almost certainly will not be back in the future, either, given the status of his relationship with the team. Jauan Jennings could be gone as well, as he is headed into free agency and has at times had friction in his relationship with the organization. That trio made up one of the best receiver corps in the NFL just two years ago. Now, they could all be playing for different teams in 2026.

San Francisco added Ricky Pearsall in 2024 to begin the makeover of the receiving corps but will need to add significant talent at wide receiver this offseason. Players like Kendrick Bourne and Demarcus Robinson are solid depth options, but Bourne — like Jennings — is a free agent, and the Niners cannot enter 2026 with Robinson — who will be 32 years old and whose career-best season came six years ago and included just 45 catches for 466 yards — in position to play a key role and still expect to be one of the league’s top offenses, even with Shanahan calling the plays.

Then there are the older players. Superstar left tackle Trent Williams, entering the final year of his contract, will play next season at age 38 if he returns. Do-it-all fullback Kyle Juszczyk will be 35. The indomitable George Kittle will be 33. And, of course, Christian McCaffrey will be 30.

Williams missed just one game due to injury this season, but he missed seven in 2024, and it is always dangerous to count on players in their late 30s to stay healthy. Kittle suffered a torn Achilles during the victory over the Eagles and missed six regular-season games with a hamstring injury. It remains unclear if or when he will be healthy next season. 

Achilles injuries are tricky to begin with, but for a player whose explosiveness and physicality serve as his calling card, they can be especially problematic. It would be unrealistic to expect him to be the same player upon his return that he was for most of his career, given both his age and the severity of the injury.

McCaffrey played every game this season but missed almost all of the 2024 campaign and is coming off a year in which he logged an incredible 413 touches, the most of any player in the NFL. The last time he had a 400-plus-touch season, he played just 10 games over the next two years combined. 

He is also seven years older now than he was then. Running backs typically decline at this stage of their careers. McCaffrey is obviously a different type of player than most running backs, but he averaged just 3.9 yards per carry this season, his worst mark in a full year since his rookie season. (The only other time he averaged fewer yards per carry came in 2020, when he played just three games.)

If San Francisco cannot run the ball effectively — which it could not do this season — it puts even more pressure on Purdy and the passing game to carry the offense. With the need to overhaul the team’s passing options, that could prove dangerous. The combination of Shanahan and Purdy is probably enough to build a borderline top-10 offense anyway — the Niners ranked 11th in EPA per play in 2024 despite significant health issues. But there is a sizable gap between being a top-10 unit and the unstoppable machine San Francisco was early in the Purdy era. That gap could be the difference between contending for a Super Bowl and going home much earlier.

Defensive cracks widen under injury weight

Those potential offensive issues are magnified by the state of the defense.

The 49ers finished 20th in yards allowed and 13th in points allowed, but ranked just 26th in EPA per play, according to Tru Media. Injuries played a significant role, as the team lost Nick Bosa to a torn ACL and Fred Warner to a dislocated and fractured ankle. By the end of the season, San Francisco had also lost first-round pick Mykel Williams to a torn ACL and backup linebacker Tatum Bethune — who had been filling in for Warner — to a torn groin.

Defensive coordinator Robert Saleh held the unit together for much of the season, but it crumbled down the stretch under the weight of those injuries. The Niners allowed an average of 27 points per game in the six contests following their Week 14 bye, a stretch that included games against the Titans and the Philip Rivers-led Colts.

San Francisco could also lose Saleh this offseason, as he has either interviewed or received interview requests from the Dolphins, Cardinals, Ravens and Titans for their open head-coaching jobs. If he leaves — which is no certainty — Shanahan would again need to search for a new defensive coordinator. He has not always hit on those hires, with the transition from Saleh’s successor DeMeco Ryans to Steve Wilks failing to mesh and the team later souring on Nick Sorensen.

Even if Saleh returns, the defense’s two best players would still be coming off major injuries. They remain in their physical primes, which helps, but there is no guarantee they will be the same. The infusion of young talent the team drafted in 2025 — Williams, Alfred Collins, Upton Stout, C.J. West and others — should help with the transition, but draft picks do not always reach their ceiling or become what teams expect.

The Niners have continually found ways to reinvent themselves during the Shanahan and John Lynch era. Counting them out from doing so again, despite these challenges, comes with risk. But these may be the most difficult circumstances they have faced yet, and that makes the future appear murkier than it has in several years.