SANTA CLARA — The pessimists among 49ers fans wanted wholesale changes. When a team follows a Super Bowl appearance and three straight NFC title games with a 6-11 season, heads should roll.
The optimists pointed to injuries and a chaotic training camp that included holdouts and discontent and figured it was OK for coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch to run it back and give it another shot with largely the same group.
If the first day of media availability for a 49ers practice Thursday was any indication, the pessimists won.
In a big way.
And they were right.
There’s a freshness to the 49ers’ approach, which in part has to do with some deep soul-searching about who should stay and who should go after going from NFC champs to last place.
In the end, the 49ers did the wise thing. They locked up their cornerstone players for big money — quarterback Brock Purdy, tight end George Kittle and linebacker Fred Warner. And from this corner, that makes a hell of a lot more sense than going hog-wild in the free agent market that mostly includes players their previous employer did not want on their roster.
The 49ers are in some way starting over, but with Purdy, Kittle, Warner, Christian McCaffrey, Trent Williams and Deommodore Lenoir around, it shouldn’t take long for the young’uns to catch up.
“There’s been a lot more turnover than in probably the last six or seven years,” Shanahan said Thursday. “This is the first time we got a long break too . . . it’s never fun to have January off, but those extra five weeks add up to a lot and I think the guys were itching to get back this time, excited t obe back, ready to go and it’s been a lot more fun that way.”
It all goes back to Shanahan’s final meeting with the 49ers after the disaster that was the 2024 season.
“I talked about how the season ended the year before and how when I felt them come back, they weren’t ready to come back,” Shanahan said. “And I understood that. But I told them how I won’t really understand it this year. We’re off five weeks earlier.
“We’re going to have a team that doesn’t know what we’ve done in the past or how guys earned a lot of stuff. We need to show them. I thought the coolest thing was everyone being here on the first day. We had every guy show up and I didn’t have to call anyone and beg them, which said a lot. They all knew what I said on the last day and I wanted to see if it really meant something to them, not where I had to call them and remind them.”
The only big name that is MIA for the voluntary sessions is Williams, but even he showed up to Phase 1 and he’s expected back soon. Purdy, Kittle and Warner are signed, sealed and delivered. Same with McCaffrey, Bosa and Lenoir.
And none of the stars apparently had to appeal to the masses about the importance of being on site. Which wasn’t the case last year after a short break following a crushing 25-22 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII.
“It’s like, OTAs are a month and a half away, and I’m not ready to be back in the building,” Kittle said. “Everybody is so eager to be back.”
Warner said Shanahan’s words upon departure from 2024 carried weight. The 49ers’ core veterans felt no need to lobby for showing up for voluntary sessions.
“We didn’t have to do all that,” Warner said. “Kyle made a point about how important it was to be back for this phase because of how last season went, and we knew what we were getting ourselves into with a whole new group. And we all made the decision on our own to be back here.”
Nobody is about to run down departed teammates — with the possible exception of De’Vondre Campbell — or departed coaches.
But it’s clear the 49ers selected those they wanted to get paid and jettisoned the rest. They’re depending on that core to lead the way, and their health and effectiveness will tell the tale of the 2025 season.
The 49ers’ leaky defense, specifically against the run, cost Nick Sorensen his job and spurred the return of Robert Saleh. There’s a lot of young defensive talent for Saleh to work with, including defensive linemen Mykell Williams, Alfred Collins and C.J. West, linebacker Nick Martin, nickel corner Upton Stout and others.
Middle linebacker Fred Warner is part of a core of veterans expected to lead a young 49ers team in 2025. Dai Sugano/Bay Area News GroupTheir perennial subpar special teams units turned to Brant Boyer after Brian Schneider was dismissed.
Boyer has brought in competition for kicker Jake Moody, replaced punter Mitch Wishnowsky with Thomas Morstead and brought in a new long snapper in Jon Weeks to replace Taybor Pepper.
It’s hard to look at this any other way than it was a good gamble for the 49ers to clean house except for their core players and fill in around them with younger players. It’s more than about seasons 2026 and beyond, it’s about the immediate future. With Super Bowl LX looming at Levi’s Stadium.
Health permitting, and that’s a big deal for core veterans, it’s hard to see where a solid 2025 season won’t provide a path back to the postseason even with the admittedly formidable Los Angeles Rams in the way.
Which really isn’t a pessimistic take at all.
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That’s the beauty of football as May turns to June.
And now the 49ers won’t be the team that everyone fears. They’re upstarts, hoping to rebound from 6-11.
It’s a good place to be, and early indications are they’ll be just fine.
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