Anyone with working corneas can see that the San Francisco 49ers are currently up against the Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams in the NFC West.
If the division was a high school cafeteria, the Niners are currently sitting next to trash cans while Sean McVay and Mike Macdonald hold court at a cool kids’ table.
But if you think San Francisco is completely out of the running to win the NFC next year, you’re mistaking a temporary, in many ways staged setback for a permanent resident.
Where are these other elite NFC teams that the Niners should fear? Green Bay, Detroit, Chicago? I wouldn’t even entertain the idea of an NFC East or South team being the top contender.
And why can’t the Niners close the gap with Seattle and the Rams this spring?
The Illusion of Division Invincibility
The reality of the NFL is that upside is as fragile as a wet paper towel. The Rams and Seahawks are both big question marks to maintain their stranglehold on the division, though for entirely different reasons:
The Seahawks boasted an all-time defense last season, but that unit is about to be decimated in free agency. It’s easy to see how Sam Darnold goes from a game manager to a guy tasked with winning more than a handful of games this coming season. Without Kenneth Walker back and without Klint Kubiak in his ear, can he do it?
The Rams, on the other hand, rolled the dice on the structural integrity of NFL MVP Matt Stafford. Their entire career rides on the throwing arm of a man who spent all of training camp sleeping inside a converted Airstream trailer called the “Ammortal Chamber.” If that aluminum tube loses power (or a bunch of hokey pseudoscience), the Rams’ season goes down with it.
The Lost Middle Class
The Niners, of course, have questions of their own. Many questions. Down and down the depth chart, on both sides of the ball, the system seems to have taken a hit.
The good news? The 49ers have money to answer all the questions in the next few weeks. They have salary cap space (and can build even more). They have money.
The real question is: Do they have a will?
Last season, the Niners’ front office treated free agency like a highly contagious disease. They stayed completely out of the first wave, appearing only to sign the tight end and fourth receiver to contracts of any consequence. They made the smart decision to eschew the “middle tier” of NFL rosters – solid, core veterans available on the open market.
That philosophy burned them in time. Even with a glorious 12-5 regular season, top-heavy rosters tend to buckle when the foundation is built on cheap, unproven depth.
CVS Receipt Length Shopping List
The front office currently has the money to provide specific answers to a list of position concerns:
- Left Guard
- IX-Receiver
- A Strong End
- The backup goes back
- Defensive Tackle & Defensive End
- Weak-Side Linebacker
- Oh, and: Cornerback, Safety, and Kicker.
There are more than enough quality players entering the open market who don’t want high market capitalization but can provide immediate stability in these areas. (And frankly, with their cap space, there’s a reason the Niners can tap into the market for blue-chip talent, too.)
The frame is a trap
If the main strategy is to try to fill all of these glaring gaps in the upcoming NFL Draft, we may be charging the front office with football ugliness while drafting the 2026 campaign.
This is not a good phase of the draft. Sure, there’s value to be mined in non-premium spots, but relying on rookies to plug twenty-two holes — in an effort to build a championship roster — is foolish.
And if the plan is to just cross their fingers and write again in 2026, what was the point of the “gap year” cost-cutting measures in 2025? You don’t save your money just to check the bank balance; save it to buy something nice.
Now may not be the time to push all the chips into the middle of the table and go “all in.” But it’s time to be active, smart, and creative.
The 49ers have a clear, paved path back to the top division of the NFC.
Are they really going to put the car in and take it with them?
