T
he 2025 NFL season is nearly here. Offseason minicamps and OTAs have opened up for all 32 teams across the league, signaling the official start of a new season. As the 2025 campaign rolls around, team and positional rankings are starting to come out– giving fans an idea of where their teams stand. Recently, Pro Football Focus released its receiving corps rankings, listing all 32 teams in order from best to worst in terms of their respective receiving corps.
When it came to the San Francisco 49ers, PFF gave the team a surprisingly favorable ranking. With lead wide receiver, Brandon Aiyuk, still recovering from a torn ACL and Deebo Samuel traded to the Washington Commanders over the offseason, San Francisco faces a lot of questions about their wide receiver group. But according to PFF, the 49ers could be in very good shape at receiver this fall.
Assessing the 49ers’ ranking
PFF’s Trevor Sikkema released the rankings and despite the uncertainty surrounding San Francisco’s core, Sikkema placed the 49ers near the top of the list at No. 5. The reason? The strong play of both Aiyuk and McCaffrey when they are both healthy, with Sikkema alluding to their high PFF grades the last time they were fully healthy.
“The 49ers’ receiving corps is an unknown, given Brandon Aiyuk’s recovery from ACL and MCL tears and Christian McCaffrey’s limited playing time last season while dealing with PCL and Achilles injuries,” Sikkema wrote. “But the fact of the matter is, McCaffrey has earned 84.0-plus PFF receiving grades in six of his eight seasons, including the last one in which he was fully healthy (2023), and Aiyuk was one of the highest graded receivers in the league (91.7) in 2023. If they are healthy and can feature alongside George Kittle, who ranked second in PFF receiving grade (92.6) among tight ends last season, as well as Jauan Jennings and Ricky Pearsall, the group deserves the benefit of the doubt, even without Deebo Samuel.”
The 49ers will likely need to start the season with Jennings and Pearsall as the lead receivers while Aiyuk recovers, but after Jennings broke out last season and Pearsall showed flashes of elite talent, they could be in a way worse situation.
The Niners Current Receiving Core
Aside from Aiyuk, Pearsall and Jennings, the 49ers will enter the season with new signing Demarcus Robinson, rookie Jordan Watkins, second year Jacob Cowing and depth pieces in Isaiah Hodgins and Russell Gage, among others. But while most of those guys are unproven, with Cowing getting very limited reps at receiver last season, the 49ers are confident that those players can step up to the challenge and be as good as advertised.
Aiyuk’s status for Week One is still uncertain. If he plays, the 49ers will be fully healthy at receiver right out of the gate and be in a much better spot to succeed right away. But if Aiyuk does end up missing time as expected, then the 49ers will hope that their younger guys end up being key contributors in 2025.
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