San Francisco 49ers: 5 worst players in 2018 through Week 7

The San Francisco 49ers find themselves at 1-6 through seven weeks in 2018, and Niner Noise breaks down the five worst players on the roster so far this season.

There’s always plenty of blame to go around when a team starts off a season going 1-6, as the San Francisco 49ers have over the first seven weeks of 2018.

It’s possible to point at the coaching staff. Head coach Kyle Shanahan isn’t immune to the criticism surrounding the team after such a poor start. And defensive coordinator Robert Saleh sure has heard his fair share of questions about how bad the Niners defense has been all season.

There are other factors too. San Francisco has dealt with swaths of injuries, most notably to quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and running back Jerick McKinnon, whose season-ending ACL tears all but thwarted any chances the 49ers had to reach the playoffs in 2018.

All of this is problematic, yes. But the largest of issues boils down to the fact the Niners simply lack enough impact talent to make headway this season.

A large number of those players are second-year pros who simply haven’t lived up to the performance levels seen a year ago at this time.

“I’ve seen it a lot over my years, Shanahan said of some players’ proverbial “sophomore slumps,” via NBC Sports Bay Area’s Jennifer Lee Chan. “I say percentage-wise it happens to a lot of people. That doesn’t mean everybody in their second year is like that. But I think you come in as a rookie, you don’t really know what to expect.”

Not surprisingly, a few of those second-year players wind up on this list of the 49ers’ five worst players through seven weeks of action.

To set the criteria real quick, let’s establish the fact each player has to play a significant role on either side of the ball. A third-string defensive back is going to be bad, most likely. But his expectation level isn’t that high to begin with.

With that in mind, here are the five worst nearing the halfway point of 2018.