I'm going to editorialize a bit here, but this take on the San Francisco 49ers is one worth discussing at length.
Should the Niners end up being a one-and-done playoff team by losing to the Philadelphia Eagles in the Wild Card round, it'd be disappointing, yes.
But it wouldn't change the fact 2025 was a storybook season. Period.
This has been a theme on my mind over the latter half of the season; a San Francisco team facing inordinate amounts of adversity somehow in serious contention for the No. 1 seed in the conference's playoff picture.
That goal ultimately wasn't realized, thanks to the Week 18 defeat at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks, but it doesn't change the (almost) miraculous narrative.
Simply put, the 49ers shouldn't be here right now.
49ers had a storybook season (regardless of its outcome)
2025 was supposed to be a reset year.
With one of the costliest rosters in football the year prior (not cap space, but spend), the Niners executed a wave of cash-saving measures, highlighted by trading wide receiver Deebo Samuel, letting star defenders like Dre Greenlaw, Charvarius Ward and Talanoa Hufanga walk in free agency, releasing veteran defensive linemen Javon Hargrave and Leonard Floyd, and even trading away running back Jordan Mason after his career-best 2024 campaign.
Followed by a reliance on younger players and drafted rookies, this season was more in line with "let's see what happens" instead of "Super Bowl or bust."
That alone prompted thoughts of San Francisco being a Wild Card team, at best, which was ultimately the outcome. Yet this was before the massive slew of injuries that ended up plaguing head coach Kyle Shanahan's squad over the course of the regular season.
Think about it:
- WR Brandon Aiyuk (knee/absence) misses entire season
- TE George Kittle lands on injured reserve after Week 1
- QB Brock Purdy misses eight games with turf-toe injury
- DE Nick Bosa tears ACL in Week 3
- LB Fred Warner suffers broken ankle in Week 6
- DE Mykel Williams tears ACL in Week 9
- WR Ricky Pearsall misses eight games with various injuries
Those are just some of the injury highlights, and even they don't fully paint a picture just how badly the 49ers were bitten by the injury bug (no team spent more on players on injured lists than the Niners, and it's by a massive margin).
"Back when Fred got hurt back against Tampa, that was Week 5, if you told anybody we’d be 12-4 and we’d be battling Week 18 for that one seed; you’re absolutely crazy," fullback Kyle Juszczyk told reporters earlier. "Nobody would’ve believed you. So it’s been a special season already, but we’re not done, and I have all the confidence in the world that we can get this thing done."
Juszczyk spoke for many San Francisco fans who are probably wondering the exact same thing.
Bleacher Report originally predicted the 49ers to win nine games this season, and that was long before the littany of injuried piled up over the course of 2025.
The Niners won 12 games in spite of the devastating setbacks.
That's pretty amazing, and it wholly highlights the jobs performed by head coach Kyle Shanahan, defensive coordinator Robert Saleh and the slew of backups and fill-ins who had to plug the gaps at various points throughout the year.
So, regardless of how things finish, it's hard to discount how special 2025 truly was for San Francisco in light of what should have otherwise been.