By all accounts, the San Francisco 49ers should've been a sub-.500 team when 2025 was said and done. Had someone told the average Niners fan before Week 1 about season-ending injury losses to linebacker Fred Warner, as well as defensive ends Nick Bosa and Mykel Williams, then tacked on lengthy absences by tight end George Kittle, wide receiver Ricky Pearsall and especially quarterback Brock Purdy, that fan might've guessed a 5-12 record when all was said and done.
Oh, and throw in a stat like a league-low 20 sacks, too, to make things even more confusing.
Yet head coach Kyle Shanahan's squad finished with a 12-5 record, was within one win of securing the No. 1 seed in the conference and even upended the defending Super Bowl champions, the Philadelphia Eagles, in the Wild Card round of the playoffs.
If those facts alone don't shed light on the exemplary job Shanahan and Co. did amid an extreme amount of adversity, another certainly should.
Overlooked stat shows how good 49ers were in 2025 despite injuries
One of the knocks against Shanahan over the years has been his teams aren't equipped to come from behind. Considering the slew of injuries, it wouldn't have been surprising if San Francisco was tasked with doing just that a lot in 2025.
But it wasn't.
As shared by Sharp Football Analysis, the 49ers were actually one of the NFL leaders in most offensive snaps with a lead (461) over the course of last season:
offensive snaps with a lead in 2025:
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) July 20, 2026
66 - New York Jets
126 - New Orleans Saints
140 - Las Vegas Raiders
156 - Tennessee Titans
178 - Carolina Panthers⭐️
214 - Washington Commanders
228 - Cleveland Browns
258 - Arizona Cardinals
278 - Dallas Cowboys
285 - Kansas City Chiefs
294…
That was good for seventh best. And while the two Super Bowl teams, the New England Patriots (578) and Seattle Seahawks (516), finished with the Nos. 1 and 2 spots, respectively, the fact the Niners were in that upper tier is pretty remarkable.
And, if you notice, being in said tier pretty much guaranteed a playoff berth, which Shanahan managed to obtain.
If San Francisco had been relatively healthy, that metric would have made a lot of sense. Since the 49ers were largely reliant upon backups and reserves throughout 2025, the fact they were still playing with the lead most of the time doesn't make a lot of sense.
Yet it's still pretty cool.
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