San Francisco 49ers: Progress-report grades for each position a quarter through 2017

Niner Noise dishes out a progress report for each position for the San Francisco 49ers a quarter of the way through the 2017 season. Which units are standing out and which are falling by the wayside?

One quarter of the 2017 NFL season is in the books, and the San Francisco 49ers find themselves owning a 0-4 record after a swarm of personnel and player changes last offseason.

It’s probably not the ideal way for head coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch to kick off their respective first years at their new positions.

And yet it’s hard to envision the Niners being much better than what we’ve seen thus far.

San Francisco 49ers

Remember, the overwhelming majority of players are two. There are two entirely new schemes — one on each side of the ball.

So, in many ways, a winless start to 2017 is partially reasonable. The Niners have faced four playoff-possible opponents already. And in three of those games (Week 2 versus the Seattle Seahawks, Week 3 versus the Los Angeles Rams and Week 4 versus the Arizona Cardinals), San Francisco was in a position to come away with a victory.

Nevertheless, it’s time to gauge how Shanahan’s squad is looking with this four-game stretch in the books.

In this slideshow, we’ll break down each position thus far through 2017 and hand out progress-report grades.

Each grade will include a cumulative analysis of what’s going well and what’s not, followed by the same kinds of grades you had in high school.

So let’s kick things off, starting with special teams.