San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
49ers believe pieces in place for a title run
After last season’s socalled revenge tour ended with the 49ers at the bottom of the NFC West instead of back in the Super Bowl, head coach Kyle Shanahan had a seemingly odd message for his 610 team.
Let’s keep the band together.
At their team meeting the day after their season ended with a fourth loss in five games, Shanahan said he told his players, “we truly want to get all you guys back.”
“It was cool to be able to say that to a group,” Shanahan said. “Everyone knows that you can’t do it, but it’s the truth: We’ve got a lot of guys that we do want to bring back because we do believe we have a good team. A really good team.”
Two months later, Shanahan and the rest of the team’s decisionmakers are putting CEO Jed York’s money where the coach’s mouth was.
Since last Sunday, the 49ers have devoted about $25 million of their 2021 salary space to keeping five starters. They have given extensions to Pro Bowl left tackle Trent Williams, Pro Bowl fullback Kyle Juszczyk, and cornerbacks Jason Verrett and Emmanuel Moseley, and they resigned nose tackle D.J. Jones. Their only notable outside signings have been former Falcons center Alex Mack and exRams pass rusher Samson Ebukam.
And it’s unlikely they will make another major move in free agency. As of Saturday, they had $10.6 million in salary cap space, according to OverTheCap.com, and still need to sign their draft class and, possibly, sign AllPro linebacker Fred Warner to a lucrative extension.
Of course, this story line won’t be as tidy if they make a change at their most important position. At this point, however, it appears the only way for the 49ers to significantly upgrade from quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo would be to deal for Houston’s Deshaun Watson, who has requested a trade and reportedly has no intention of playing for the Texans again. However, the 49ers would have plenty of competition to land Watson and aren’t wellpositioned to compete with their No. 12 draft pick as one of their chips.
In addition, civil lawsuits from seven different plaintiffs were filed against Watson in the past week, alleging sexual misconduct. The NFL is investigating the claims.
If Garoppolo does, in fact, remain, it’s fair to say the 49ers will be running it back after the 2020 season ran aground.
And that’s great news to one of the 12 remaining players who started in Super Bowl LIV.
Juszczyk said he’s been talking this offseason with AllPro tight end George Kittle, the inspiration for the postSuper Bowl revengetour chatter.
“I speak with Kittle regularly about just how we’ve got what it takes,” Juszczyk said. “And adding a few pieces is no doubt going to help. But even if we don’t, we feel like we do have a squad ready to go that, when healthy, is ready to win a championship.”
Key words: when healthy. The 49ers, who went 133 in in 2019, have good reason to believe they aren’t a typical 610 team after leading the NFL in 2020 with 32 injuredreserve transactions. Some of that was misfortune. And some of it was because the 49ers had too many players with significant injury histories who didn’t stay healthy.
Shanahan suggested after the season that the 49ers’ inordinate attrition would prompt them to place a greater emphasis on durability when evaluating players.
It’s notable that Mack, 35, has played in all 16 games in 10 of his 12 NFL seasons. And Ebukam, 25, has played in all 70 games, including the postseason, in his fouryear career. They have also signed Cardinals wide receiver Trent Sherfield, 25, who has played in 44 of 48 games. The 49ers did bring back Verrett, who has a massive medical file, but avoided a longterm commitment with a oneyear, $5.5 million deal.
Meanwhile, the 49ers aren’t expected to bring back two starters in their secondary — cornerback Richard Sherman and Jaquiski Tartt — who combined to miss 20 games last year.
They 49ers are clearly thinking the pieces are in place for another Super Bowl run, as long as most of those pieces can stay on the field. That logic is understandable given their roster, as currently constructed, includes 12 firstround picks and eight Pro Bowl selections.
Shanahan wasn’t kidding when he talked about keeping the core of a sixwin team intact.
Time will tell if running it back leads them back to respectability and beyond.
“We’ve won 13 games in the regular season,” Juszczyk said. “So we know how that feels. We know it’s possible. And the majority of those guys are going to be here to try to do it again. … I feel like we’re in great position to return to where we were at two years ago.”