As I'm sure we're all well aware, 2024 has not been a good year for the San Francisco 49ers.
You can trace it all the way back to losing linebacker Dre Greenlaw in the Super Bowl, follow the thread through training camp holdouts and hold-ins, lingering injuries to guys like running back Christian McCaffrey, and team-wide tragedies before ending with Week 15's dud of a loss to the Los Angeles Rams that, of course, included a player quitting on the team in the middle of the contest.
For a team that came into the year with such high expectations, anything short of another long playoff run and a shot at another Super Bowl was going to be disappointing.
But what has actually occured in 2024 has been nothing short of shocking.
So it stands to reason that on top of everything else, players have underperformed this season, leading in large part to a year that is more likely to end up with a top-15 NFL Draft pick than even sniffing the playoffs.
Sure, there have been some pleasant surprises, mostly the play of the 2024 rookie class. But by and large, the year was riddled with players who need to show a lot more in the final days of the campaign.
We'll start with the obvious, since his voice has been the loudest, and so the fall has been the most noticeable.
WR Deebo Samuel
This won't be the first time it gets mentioned, but back in September, I wrote a piece making bold predictions about the season, all of which are not going to hit or look downright awful at the moment.
Prediction No. 3 was that wide receiver Deebo Samuel was going to have a career year. The thought process included an expected slow start for fellow wideout Brandon Aiyuk after his contract dispute (I got that part right at least) and rookie Ricky Pearsall taking time to recover from his August gunshot wound.
While those two things happened, Deebo never built upon a decent start to the season (he had 20 receptions for 335 yards through five games), and outside of OK showings against the Dallas Cowboys and Tampa Bay Buccaneers after Aiyuk went down with ACL and MCL tears, has basically disappeared in the ensuing five games.
Over that span, Samuel has caught just 14 passes (on 26 targets) for 101 yards while running the ball eight times for 15 yards. Worse, the former All-Pro looks to have lost the burst and ability to break tackles that led to his successful 2021 season.
The capper was Week 15, however. After responding to criticisms about his play this season via social media, the offense seemed to focus on allowing Deebo to prove himself right, only for the receiver to fall flat again, including dropping a key pass late in the game that might have prompted the 49ers to win the game.
There's been a lot of speculation about Deebo's future with San Francisco going all the way back to the offseason, and this performance in 2024 isn't going to quell that fire.
QB Brock Purdy
Another bold prediction for 2024 was that quarterback Brock Purdy would break his own 49ers passing records this season after finishing in the top-five for NFL MVP voting in 2023.
Certainly, there was no reason to know that his supporting cast would crumble around him, but Purdy has also appeared to be less sure of himself in 2024 and has made more critical errors throughout the season that have led to 49ers losses.
After finishing with 4,280 passing yards and 31 touchdowns in 2023, the quarterback's numbers this year look signifcantly more pedestrian: 3,174 yards, 15 touchdowns, all while completing just 65 percent of his passes.
His play has opened up the discussion about a looming contract extension and whether or not Purdy should be paid like a top quarterback in the NFL.
Removing money talk from the conversation altogether, there's no doubt Purdy has not performed up to the standard he's set for himself this season, no matter who has been on the field with him.
EDGE Leonard Floyd
It feels like the 49ers have been looking for a bookend pass-rusher to pair with Nick Bosa since the former No. 2 overall pick entered the league.
As a rookie, Bosa had Dee Ford, but a Ford ravaged by injury who couldn't stay on the field as the 49ers made their Super Bowl run in 2019.
Since then, Bosa missed 2020 with an ACL tear (and the team trotted out guys like Kerry Hyder and Kentavius Street to rush the passer from the edge), was flanked by Samson Ebukam in 2021 and 2022 (with some Charles Omenihu), and Clelin Ferrell, Randy Gregory, and Chase Young last year.
None of those guys fully panned out, so the 49ers brought in veteran Leonard Floyd on a two-year free-agent contract last offseason, hoping that the former Rams and Buffalo Bills pass-rusher would be the dominant bookend with Bosa the team needed.
Floyd's numbers are going to end up looking similar to where they have been the last few seasons (sack totals of 10.5, 9.5, 9.0, and 10.5), but the impact has mostly come on since the recent loss to the Seattle Seahawks where he's had 5.5 sacks in five games, more than half of his season total.
His $10.1 million cap hit for 2025 isn't outrageous, but the 49ers may be looking to get younger at the position since Floyd turns 33 years old right around when the next season will begin.
The consistency just hasn't been there for Floyd in 2024 and has been a major reason why the defense has struggled at times, especially during the stretch when Bosa was out due to injury.
K Jake Moody/P Mitch Wishnowsky
It's not often than you see kickers on a list like this, but it's fair to say that both Jake Moody and Mitch Wishnowsky have been disappointing this season for different reasons.
For Wishnowsky, it's because he was given the sixth most expensive contract in the league for his position in terms of total value and frankly hasn't lived up to that big-money extension.
Not to mention, the 49ers used a fourth-round draft pick on him back in 2019 (not his fault, but it's a fact) and he's never been the field-flipping weapon they thought they were getting.
The Australian has also spent nearly half of the season on IR and missed all of the preseason, forcing the Niners to bring in extra punters at various points throughout the season. Even when he was out there, Wishnowsky was averaging just 45.2 yards per kick and saw his net average at the lowest of his career (36.3), although a lot of that comes down to coverage.
In Moody's case, a lot of his problems come down to both his draft position (a third-round pick in 2023) and that he has been unreliable not just from distance (he's 5-of-9 from 50-plus yards in his career), but also strangely from the should-be-relatively easy 40-49-yard distances (10 of 15, just 67 percent in 17 games).
Like Wishnowsky, it isn't Moody's fault the 49ers reached for him, but it is on him to figure out why he missed two field goals inside that 40-49 range against the Bucs or why he missed a crucial extra point in the Super Bowl.
The former Michigan kicker is still on his rookie deal, but he's likely going to feel the pressure of a camp battle entering the 2025 season because cutting him costs the 49ers very little in dead money, and if this team has visions of competing again next year, it can't have that little faith in special teams getting the job done.
On the whole, this season has been disappointing, sure. But the last few weeks of the season, as Bosa said after the loss to the Rams, will show us who wants to be with the 49ers both now and into the future.