SANTA CLARA — For a second-straight summer, the 49ers wasted their training camp.
Because with two-and-a-half weeks to go before their season opener against the Seahawks, there’s only one viable verdict one could reach on the state of this team: They’re not ready.
Can they find a way to change that between now and Sept. 7? Perhaps.
But that’s what the Niners said they would do this time last season, and while, yes, they did win their season-opening game against the Jets, does any win against the Big Green Losing Machine truly count? After that, the Niners only won five more games all season.
At least last year’s team had a bad mix of a Super Bowl hangover and the Pat Riley-dubbed “disease of more.” A raw egg and a couple of Advil weren’t going to wash that away. But at least those were viable excuses.
What’s the excuse for this Niners team’s inability to execute simple things — on both sides of the ball — in this year’s training camp?
Injuries?
Yeah, the line for the trainer’s room is longer than the latest TikTok-famous pop-up restaurant’s. The Niners have shuttled in defense linemen, offensive linemen, running backs, wide receivers, and now quarterbacks to get through practices. (The latest: the Niners signed quarterback Nate Sudfeld on Tuesday, he practiced Wednesday, and was so bad they cut him and brought in another quarterback, Tanner Mordecai, for Thursday’s practice.)
But at the same time, this is football — every team is dealing with injuries. And you can’t argue the Niners weren’t asking for this — the team’s roster is built on two types of players: it’s almost exclusively sage veterans and rookies.
You know, the two kinds of players that get injured most frequently in the NFL.
It’s as if the Niners’ front office looked at the disaster that was the 2024 season and decided to double down on all the problems. Apparently, the issue was that they didn’t fully commit to the stars-and-scrubs model. (But hey, at least they saved a bit of cash.)
It’s left the Niners in a position where they’re now stacking bad practices on bad practices. Wednesday, in the final practice before the team’s preseason finale Saturday against the Chargers, a good portion of the Niners’ 11-on-11 play involved players going to ground at the end of every snap.
There were also bad drops and hospital balls, visionless runs and defensive brain farts. The bad play seemed to compound with every rep. And no, this wasn’t just one bad day in the sun.
This is the byproduct of playing so many kids and journeymen at one time. I drop my kids off at daycare in the morning, only to see the Niners run daycare in the afternoon.
And again, it’s by design. The team’s made 19 draft picks over the last two years, and 17 — perhaps even 18 — will be held onto after next Tuesday’s cuts. (Jarrett Kingston, a 2024 6th round pick, was waived after last year’s training camp. Seventh-round pick in 2025 Junior Bergen, a wide receiver and punt returner might be on the roster bubble.) This, plus future Hall of Famers, is the foundation of the team.
It’s left a football team where a good number of players are out there trying to figure out how to make it in the NFL on the fly. And that’s a tough gig that not all of them are suited to fill.
And I doubt these final two weeks ahead of the Seahawks game are when it all collectively, magically clicks into place for them.
This is not what the Niners envisioned when they set the goal of hitting the ground running in the 2025 season, which features three division games in the first five weeks.
One excuse you’ll hear from defenders is that San Francisco won’t be as desperate for the kids to play if some of their established, but injured, players return to the fold for Week 1.
And that’s true. The problem is that there are more than a handful that will be cutting it close to kickoff. You can’t count on them at the moment. You probably can’t prepare with him in the days preceding the game. They’ll be coming into an NFL regular-season game cold.
But what’s the alternative? The Niners were running Robbie Chosen as a first-team wide receiver on Thursday. The Niners signed him Aug. 3 as a camp body, but so many other bodies have gone down in the meantime that he’s worked his way to the top of the depth chart.
Skyy Moore, who was acquired via a trade on Wednesday, won’t knock him off that spot. There’s a reason Kansas City gave him away for next to nothing. Only Jauan Jennings (calf injury) can take that spot, and he should be considered questionable at best for Week 1.
Maybe the Niners need to make another trade (or two) at receiver.
There’s also a legitimate possibility the Niners will be starting rookie guard Connor Colby against the Seahawks. He was supposed to be a project seventh-round pick, perhaps even a practice-squad player, but with Dom Puni’s knee injury and the poor play of Nick Zakelj this preseason, he’s now No. 1 on the right-guard depth chart. Opposite him at left guard will be Ben Bartch, whose injured elbow has a massive metal brace on it. I’m sure Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy — one of the best defensive tackle duos in the league — won’t feel the need to attack either Colby’s questionable technique or Bartch’s injured elbow…
I can go on and on with issues like this, but suffice it to say the Niners’ actual, playable roster doesn’t look anything like the one the team expected as they head into a road division game.
And the state of this roster is undercutting another point of optimism for this team — the idea that they have great coaches who can maximize whatever roster they have.
I do think the Niners have solid coaches, but clearly there’s a limit. These men aren’t miracle workers, and right now, this team needs miracles.
As it stands, only two players have exceeded expectations in camp.
Wide receiver Ricky Pearsall should have carried big expectations after a strong finish to 2024, but he’s been so outstanding that he has to qualify as a surprise.
And outside of that, only rookie safety Marquese Sigle has played his way into a starting role. He’s been a revelation.
Otherwise, this depth chart is full of promotions by default.
Sadly, you can’t win games by default in the NFL regular season. At least not until Week 13, when the Niners play the Browns.
Maybe the optimists are right. This might all be too doom and gloom for late August. Maybe this team does have enough talent to win. Perhaps its superior coaching will shine through.
But if that’s true, the Niners are also engaging in some world-class brinksmanship for a second-straight year.
Remind me again how that worked out?
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