The San Francisco 49ers had a pretty remarkable 2025 season, but some players have to be pretty displeased with how things went for them personally.
Running back Isaac Guerendo can stake a claim for most aggrieved after how the season went.
Guerendo was entering his second season in 2025 coming off a very solid rookie campaign. He was thrown into the line of fire in 2024 after both Christian McCaffrey and Jordan Mason went down with injuries, and the first-year pro filled in quite nicely.
In 16 games played, Guerendo had 420 rushing yards and four touchdowns. He did not look like he was going to be replacing McCaffrey as RB1 or anything like that, but he did enough to think that we would see him as a backup to McCaffrey going forward.
That was thrown into question after the NFL Draft when the Niners selected running back Jordan James and signed undrafted free agent Corey Kiner. The Niners clearly wanted some competition for the Wisconsin and Louisville product.
Then, Guerendo dealt with injuries in camp that limited him as basically the entire running back depth chart was upended due to injuries.
That is what prompted the front office to trade for Brian Robinson from the Washington Commanders who immediately took the RB2 spot on the depth chart and threw Guerendo's role into uncertainty.
49ers already seem poised to move on from Isaac Guerendo
It was fair to assume he would still see some action in the backfield, especially since almost every year the 49ers deal with injuries at running back. But he did not receive a single carry in 2025.
Not only that, but Guerendo was removed from special teams duties after starting the year as a kick returner alongside Skyy Moore. He was replaced by Robinson, and remarkably, McCaffrey and Robinson were the only two running backs who took carries for San Francisco in the regular season.
Guerendo was still third on the depth chart until late in the season when James was finally healthy enough to be activated, which meant he was the new RB3.
McCaffrey was banged up in San Francisco's massive loss to the Seahawks in the playoffs, and the Niners wisely kept him out of the game and gave the ball to James, who actually looked pretty good even though it was garbage time.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan said the following about James after the end of the season: "He was ready to go here these last six weeks of the year, big time. There wasn’t an opportunity for him. But if he has an offseason that we think he’s capable of and can improve, especially the way he looked here at the end of the year, I feel very excited about him helping us.”
That sure sounds like the Niners are high on James and plan to enter 2026 with him as a candidate to be the backup with Robinson set to be a free agent.
Perhaps San Francisco will keep Guerendo around as a depth option, but it seems pretty clear Shanahan has soured on him, so he could be a cut candidate, which would bring his time in the Bay Area to an unceremonious end after a promising start to his career.