SANTA CLARA, Calif. — At which positions are the 1-2 San Francisco 49ers ailing the most? You might want to get comfy because it’s a long list, certainly longer than you’d expect for a Super Bowl contender with a recent reputation for loaded rosters.
Most of the issues have been brought on by injuries, one that has lingered from the 2023 season and some that have cropped up this summer. Another theme so far: Players the 49ers brought in via free agency haven’t performed as well as the team hoped.
The following are the five most troublesome spots, ranked from least to most concerning. We’ve also included the likeliest solutions at each position.
5. Running back
We should be more specific: As it stands now, the 49ers are in need of a reliable backup or change-of-pace back. Jordan Mason has been excellent as their starter. His 324 rushing yards rank second behind the Philadelphia Eagles’ Saquon Barkley. And he’s been able to shoulder big workloads so far, notable considering the team’s recent injury history at the position.
The issue lies in what the 49ers have behind Mason. They’re obviously trying to ease fourth-round draft pick Isaac Guerendo into the mix. He’s gone from zero, to one, to five carries over the past three weeks. And they seem content to use fullback Kyle Juszczyk as their third-down back, something they’ve done sporadically in recent seasons when their running back ranks have grown thin.
The position group, of course, would vault to five-alarm concern if Mason had to sit out games.
The team’s preferred starter, Christian McCaffrey, officially must miss two more contests, including Sunday’s game against the New England Patriots, after going on injured reserve. Kyle Shanahan said on KNBR radio Thursday that McCaffrey has been taking it easy on his sore Achilles during his first two weeks on IR and that he’ll likely start pushing it harder soon.
“Now we’re gonna start hitting the rehab harder and try to get him back into football stuff and see how he responds,” he said.
He characterized McCaffrey’s recent trip to Germany as part of the running back’s effort to see “every specialist he can, just doing all the little stuff.
“I mean, Christian does that more than anybody I’ve ever been around,” Shanahan said. “He gives a full-time commitment to everything for his body year-round. So he’s been doing that stuff while not pushing it hard in rehab. And now we’ll probably turn it up here in the next couple of weeks. … We’ll start testing it out sooner than later.”
How would the 49ers cope without Mason or McCaffrey? They’d have to lean on Guerendo and Patrick Taylor Jr., who has yet to take an offensive snap this season. Or they’d have to bring in a runner from the outside — either a free agent like Matt Breida, Jerick McKinnon or trade acquisition — something they’ve been hesitant to do so far.
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4. Third cornerback
It should come as no surprise that, on a team that features Deommodore Lenoir and Charvarius Ward at cornerback, opponents are choosing to target the third guy at the position, free-agent addition Isaac Yiadom.
Through three games, quarterbacks have completed 10 of 13 throws against him for 123 yards. And they have a 131.3 passer rating when targeting him. For perspective, the player who was in Yiadom’s position for most of last season, Ambry Thomas, gave up a 99.5 passer rating in 2023.
Unlike last year, however, the 49ers have good options farther down the depth chart: veteran Rock Ya-Sin and rookie Renardo Green. They’ve been slowly working Green into games — nine snaps in the last two weeks — signaling there could be a changing of the guard at the No. 3 spot. Getting Green snaps this season also promises to pay dividends next year when he almost certainly will contend for one of the starting roles.
3. Second and third linebacker
While Fred Warner is arguably the best linebacker in the NFL, opponents have been picking on the guy who plays next to him, De’Vondre Campbell Sr.
They’ve targeted him on passes 16 times so far, according to Pro Football Focus. What’s more, they’ve completed 14 of those passes for 149 yards, a touchdown and a 25-yard pass-interference penalty that set up a game-winning field goal Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams.
It’s worth noting that Campbell wasn’t the team’s first choice at the position in March. They’d agreed to a deal with Eric Kendricks before he reconsidered and signed with the Dallas Cowboys instead. Kendricks has been good in coverage through three games, allowing 61 yards and a passer rating of 72.2.
Campbell’s understudy, Dee Winters, has been dealing with an ankle injury all season. He missed Wednesday’s practice and was limited in Thursday’s session. Meanwhile, the heretofore No. 3 linebacker, Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles, has struggled, rookie Tatum Bethune has been more of a middle linebacker and Curtis Robinson was carted off the practice field Thursday with a knee injury.
The 49ers have the perfect solution to their linebacker woes, of course, in Dre Greenlaw. But they won’t rush his return from a Feb. 11 ruptured Achilles tendon. The Nov. 10 game in Tampa Bay, which follows the bye week, still seems like the most realistic date for him to return.
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2. Right tackle
One of the many consequential miscues in Sunday’s loss to the Los Angeles Rams occurred in the final minute of the first half when Brandon Aiyuk broke open on a slant at the Los Angeles’ 30-yard line.
Brock Purdy saw the opportunity, began to wind up but never got the throw off. Instead, edge rusher Byron Young crashed in from his right, having gotten past tackle Colton McKivitz. The resulting fumble cost the 49ers an opportunity to go up 17-7 right before halftime.
The play wasn’t an outlier.
McKivitz is tied for the most pressures given up by an offensive tackle this season with 13: three sacks, one quarterback hit and nine quarterback hurries. He ended last season with 59 pressures, tying him with the Kansas City Chiefs’ Jawaan Taylor and the Cincinnati Bengals’ Orlando Brown Jr. for most in the NFL by a tackle.
What can the 49ers do?
This position ranks No. 2 on our list because they don’t have a lot of good options. They have just one reserve tackle on the 53-man roster, Jaylon Moore, and he’s taken only a few snaps at right tackle in recent seasons. That’s because left tackle Trent Williams gets regular days off due to his veteran status. And this year Willams’ protracted contract dispute meant Moore played exclusively on the left side throughout the spring and summer.
Other options include Spencer Burford, an NFL guard who’s been taking some practice snaps at tackle since the season started, and practice-squad players Chris Hubbard and Isaac Alarcon, an International Pathway Program exemption. Hubbard played most of his 10-year career at right tackle and might be the most natural fit if the 49ers needed a more permanent solution on the right side.
1. Defensive line
We were going to try to discern between defensive tackle and defensive end, but the truth is that they’re intertwined and both positions have problems.
The 49ers obviously will feel the impact of losing defensive tackle Javon Hargrave for the rest of the regular season. No one else at his position penetrates the way he does and his eight quarterback pressures so far are second only to Nick Bosa’s 12 among 49ers defenders. Meanwhile, Hargrave’s would-be replacement in the starting lineup, Jordan Elliott, injured his foot during Thursday’s practice. The 49ers will provide an update on Elliott on Friday.
Shanahan said the 49ers are hoping to get Kalia Davis (knee) back from IR in “the next couple of weeks.” Davis is a 2022 draft pick who played just 54 snaps last season.
Another solution is to shift big-bodied defensive end Yetur Gross-Matos inside, something the 49ers have done successfully with Arden Key and Charles Omenihu in recent seasons. Of Gross-Matos’ 13 sacks in his previous four seasons in Carolina, four came when he lined up as a defensive tackle.
Of course, using Gross-Matos more on the inside means he won’t be as available as much at defensive end, and he’s needed there as well.
The 49ers obviously want to limit starter Leonard Floyd’s snaps early in the season. The 32-year-old edge rusher has played 105 of a possible 163 snaps so far, 64 percent. Bosa, by contrast, has played 152 snaps (93 percent). The other two options at the position, Robert Beal Jr. and Sam Okuayinonu, have played just 13 snaps and 20 snaps, respectively.
(Top photo: Michael Zagaris / San Francisco 49ers / Getty Images)
