SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Play the rookies! Sit the veterans! Start thinking about next year!
That’s the refrain of a growing segment of fans tired of watching their team sleepwalk through the season. Sunday’s loss in Green Bay, which the San Francisco 49ers began like a neophyte ice skater taking his first wobbly steps onto the rink, sealed it for a lot of observers: This year’s squad can’t get it going and is not a serious contender.
The 49ers, of course, don’t see it that way.
They note their still-hanging-around status in the NFC West and think there’s still plenty to play for this season.
“I think the vibe’s probably a lot lower outside of this locker room than it is in,” said Christian McCaffrey, a hint of defiance in his voice. “Our team is hungry. We still have everything in front of us. And we’re ready to go.”
What’s more, even if the 49ers acknowledged that the 2024 season is a wash and it’s time to shift into next-year mode, there’s not a lot of changes they can make that haven’t already been done.
Play more rookies? Three of them — Dominick Puni, Renardo Green and Malik Mustapha — started the recent game in Green Bay with another three serving backup roles and playing significant snaps. San Francisco rookies already have logged 1,993 snaps on either offense or defense this season. In 17 games last season, that figure was 673 snaps, more than half from safety Ji’Ayir Brown.
Maybe the ‘23-’24 comparison isn’t all that impressive when you consider that one of last year’s top rookies, kicker Jake Moody, only plays special teams and the 49ers didn’t have any first- or second-round picks that season, either.
But this year’s 49ers, a team that at least began the season with Super Bowl aspirations, are on pace for more rookie snaps than any in the Kyle Shanahan-John Lynch era save for their first year in 2017. Back then they were very much in clean-house mode, ran into massive injury issues at midseason and played a lot of rookies on offense and defense. (You’ll be forgiven if you don’t remember the contributions of Cole Hikutini, Victor Bolden Jr. and Lorenzo Jerome that year).
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Sit the veterans? There are already a bunch that have been sitting, leaning, using knee-scooters in recent weeks.
Consider this: The 49ers have had 10 different players voted to the Pro Bowl over the last three seasons. Those players already have missed 34 games this season with that number certain to grow Sunday in Buffalo. The only two to have appeared in every contest so far: fullback Kyle Juszczyk and linebacker Fred Warner (more on him later). The fact that so many veterans have had to sit is largely why the rookies are playing so much.
Still, there are a few things the team could do to shake things up and better prepare them for the 2025 season.
1. Utilize Jacob Cowing, who is out of the concussion protocol after missing the game in Green Bay.
The fourth-round receiver has been an exception to the team’s rookie dependence. While Cowing has been the primary punt returner, he’s played a scant 33 snaps on offense and has three targets in the passing game, all of them in the Week 7 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Cowing, the 49ers’ fastest receiver, can stretch the field horizontally and vertically and might be someone who can add some spark to the screens and end arounds that have largely been absent or ineffective this year.
Tired of watching Deebo Samuel Sr. jog through the cheat-motion plays or get stuffed on outside runs? Why not give Cowing a shot? After all, he’s Samuel’s understudy.
2. Don’t lean so heavily on McCaffrey.
Shanahan — finally ‚ said this week what’s been clear since running backs coach Bobby Turner started working with the Shanahans in the mid-1990s: They don’t like to rotate runners.
“We’re not just a big three-man-rotation team, especially when you have a solidified starter,” Shanahan said Wednesday. “We’re not trying to get Christian off the field more. We want to keep him fresh and keep him at his best, but Christian’s also a guy who gets better as he goes. He’s a guy who feels a lot more comfortable being out there.”
That’s a legitimate reason. The problem this year, however, is that McCaffrey hasn’t been the offensive elixir the 49ers were hoping he’d be when he returned to the lineup. Two of the 49ers’ worst rushing outings of the season have come in the last three games with McCaffrey getting the lion’s share of the snaps in those contests.
Has that been McCaffrey’s fault? No. But he also hasn’t jump-started the offense, and the 49ers may soon reach a point when it’s hard to defend McCaffrey getting all but a handful of snaps. The 49ers know what they have in Jordan Mason, who will be a restricted free agent after the season. More intriguing is rookie Isaac Guerendo, who was just beginning to find his zone-running stride when McCaffrey returned to the lineup.
If the 49ers’ top two tailbacks in 2025 are McCaffrey and Guerendo — and there’s a decent chance for that — both might be better served by playing Guerendo more down the home stretch.
3. Give Warner time to heal.
No one deserves to wear the captain’s “C” on his chest as much as Warner. He’s the voice, spirit and soul of the locker room, something he’s underscored by playing the last seven games with a broken bone in his ankle.
Warner easily could have tapped out after Week 4, gone on injured reserve and allowed the injury to heal. It’s obviously affected him. In Weeks 1 through 3, he seemed like the best defensive player in the NFL. Since the injury, he’s looked like merely a pretty good linebacker. Like a true captain, he put the team ahead of his reputation and continued to play.
There’s no easy solution to this one. Both of the 49ers’ backup middle linebackers, Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles (knee) and rookie Tatum Bethune (knee) haven’t practiced this week. Bethune is on IR with an MCL sprain. One solution might be practice squadder Jalen Graham, who trained at middle linebacker last offseason and preseason. Or perhaps veteran De’Vondre Campbell Sr. has become comfortable enough in the defense to play in the middle. He has plenty of experience at that spot previously in his career.
Either way, if the 49ers can’t break out of their funk soon, it’s going to be hard to reconcile seeing Warner — at what, 85 percent of himself? — leading the defense with a broken bone in his ankle.
(Top photo of Ji’Ayir Brown and Malik Mustapha attempting to tackle Dontayvion Wicks: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
