4 bold predictions for the 49ers for upcoming 2024 NFL season

The San Francisco 49ers and their Monday Night Football opponents, the New York Jets, will be among the final teams to kickoff their 2024 season.

This gives those who follow the team an extra day to dream about what could be for the upcoming campaign, as the Niners look to get over the hump and be the victors on the season's final day, something that's eluded the franchise since January 1995.

Let's use that additional time to make some final bold predictions for the season, two each for the offense and the defense, just to make things even.

We'll begin with the offense and the most important position of all of sports: the quarterback.

Bold Prediction No. 1: Brock Purdy will break 49ers' QB records... again

In his first full season as a starter, Brock Purdy broke the 49ers' single-season record for passing with 4,280 yards. He crept past former record holder Jeff Garcia, whose record of 4,278 yards stood for 23 seasons, with Jimmy Garoppolo in 2019 coming nearest to breaking it with 3,978 yards in his high-watermark campaign.

Purdy's 31 passing touchdowns were tied with that same Garcia season and Joe Montana's 1987 for fourthin a single season, sitting behind Steve Young in 1998 (36), Young in 1994 (35), and Garcia in 2001 (32) on the Niners' all-time list.

The thing is, Purdy not only missed the 49ers' 17th game last year because the team had already locked up its NFC playoff position but sat down for the bulk of the fourth quarter in games against the Cowboys, Jaguars, Cardinals, and Ravens (although not for good reasons that time).

That doesn't even account for a bad stretch during San Francisco's midseason losing streak, where a better Purdy might have a) won the team more games and b) seen his statistics fly even higher.

So for 2024, there's no reason that Purdy can't close in on 4,500 yards and break the single-season touchdown record, making it two record-breaking seasons in a row for the signal-caller.