The San Francisco 49ers may have been the NFL’s most disappointing team in 2024, but it’s a new year and time for them to get better, according to ESPN.com’s Bill Barnwell.
The NFL analyst predicted San Francisco as one of the NFL’s five most likely teams to improve from 2024 to 2025, in a piece he produced for Monday.
San Francisco, of course, is coming off a playoff-empty 6-11 season after three straight years of at least reaching the NFC Championship Game. The Niners were beset by injuries, notably to All-Pro running back Christian McCaffrey, who missed all but four games, and star wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk, who blew out his knee in Week 7.
But those struggles are behind San Francisco, and even though the Niners are again being inundated with wide receiver injuries, they have the tools to persevere in 2025.
What Did Bill Barnwell Say About The 49ers Improving?
It may not come as a shock that the Niners are being projected to improve, since they were arguably the NFL’s most disappointing team after qualifying for the Super Bowl in two of the previous four seasons and lost twice in the NFC Championship Game in that span.
But Barnwell noted just how unlucky the 49ers were last year too.
“They were the league’s most injured team, ranking 30th in offensive adjusted games lost and 31st in defensive adjusted games lost,” Barnwell noted. “While you might look toward McCaffrey and [left tackle Trent] Williams and suggest they’re prone to missing time, the 49ers were the fourth-healthiest team by this same metric in 2023, with much of the same core on both sides of the ball.
“We should see a healthier version of this roster in 2025, which would mean fewer snaps for replacement-level players and street free agents signed out of desperation.”
Barnwell noted the fact the Niners played the NFL’s toughest schedule, a consequence of playing in the highly competitive NFC West and reaching the Super Bowl in 2023-24. But they will have the easiest schedule by win percentage this year, especially early in the year since their first four games will come against teams that didn’t make the playoffs in 2024.
“There’s always skepticism about strength of schedule metrics and how good they are at projecting real schedule difficulty,” Barnwell noted. “I wouldn’t be confident that the 49ers will face the easiest schedule solely because of the FPI’s projection, but I’d be confident they’ll face a relatively easy run of opponents.”
Why Might The 49ers Not Improve?
It’s hard to imagine San Francisco finishing with six-or-fewer wins again — and if it does, it has far bigger issues to address.
But if the Niners are going to regress further, their kicking game, and 2023 third-round pick Jake Moody, may have something to do with it.
“Special teams performance tends to be wildly inconsistent for most teams from year to year, and the 49ers ranked last in special teams win probability added,” Barnwell wrote. “Moody hit just 70 percent of his field goals, with Kyle Shanahan perhaps stubbornly banking on Moody’s prior accomplishments and on a player the organization drafted in the third round in 2023.”
Plus, even though the Niners got healthier, they still are going through it in their wide receiver room. But Barnwell still expects to see them playing in January.
“The Niners already are battling plenty of injuries in camp, and there’s not as much talent here as there was in 2022 or 2023,” Barnwell reported, “but I would expect them to be back in the postseason.”
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