This is the Chronicle’s annual offseason advice for San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan, a story that’s always been written with a wink and a nudge.

That’s not to say that the actual recommendations haven’t been serious over the years. But it’s been a joke to think that the 49ers’ top decision-makers are following the counsel of a beat writer who never played beyond his freshman year in high school and hasn’t won the title in his fantasy football league in 20 years.

But that was then, when the 49ers were playing in four NFC Championship Games and two Super Bowls in a five-season span. And this is now, after the 49ers played like, well … let’s just say that they didn’t play well in 2024.

A year after they were one win away from a Super Bowl title, the 49ers finished with one more win than the Carolina Panthers. And the guys in charge don’t look quite as brilliant after a 6-11 disaster in which they helped set the tone by pouring molasses all over contract negotiations with wideout Brandon Aiyuk and left tackle Trent Williams.

Once the games started, their defense allowed the fourth most points in the NFL partly because Lynch and Shanahan might have underestimated the impact of releasing defensive tackle Arik Armstead and replacing him with Maliek Collins. And that decision to give linebacker DeVondre Campbell a $5 million contract? Not good!

A year ago, two days after the 49ers came up just short in Super Bowl LVIII, Lynch looked ahead to the offseason and said the 49ers “needed finishers in every area of our team.” In 2024, however, the 49ers lost five games in which they had second-half leads and were outscored 165-88 in the fourth quarter.

That is, they evidently still need finishers. And, perhaps, some help from an outside source with modest credentials?

The latest blueprint for their offseason:

Pay QB Brock Purdy ASAP

After the regular season, Lynch said Purdy was “our guy” when asked a question about the upcoming offseason contract negotiations. And Shanahan said he planned on Purdy being the QB as long as he was the coach because “I know he is capable of getting the Niners a Super Bowl in the future.”

Great, fellas. That means you view him as a franchise QB. And those guys get paid at least $53 million annually. So tell Paraag Marathe and the gang to scrap the lowball starting offers for which the 49ers are known and begin with a reasonable proposal. It’s not only a good-faith gesture to a player who has been wildly underpaid in his first three seasons, it’s also in the best interest of the franchise.

In 2022, wide receiver Deebo Samuel arrived out of shape after his contract drama finally ended and had a subpar season. In 2023, pass rusher Nick Bosa didn’t budge in contract talks, the 49ers finally caved four days before the season opener and Bosa pointed to his holdout to explain his sluggish start. Last year, Aiyuk and Williams signed at the 11th hour before embarking on seasons in which they combined to miss 17 games and finished on injured reserve.

Purdy is very eager to sign an extension before the start of the offseason program in April, and he offered a non-answer when asked whether he’d report without a new contract in hand. Do the 49ers really want to follow a six-win season by embarking on what they hope is a bounce-back season without their most important player?

This isn’t suggesting the 49ers should make Purdy the NFL’s highest-paid player at his position with a contract that tops that of Dallas’ Dak Prescott ($60 million). But there should be a very small negotiating window. After all, strong arguments could be made that Purdy is just as good or better than Detroit’s Jared Goff ($53 million), Miami’s Tua Tagovailoa ($53.1 million), Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence ($55 million) and Green Bay’s Jordan Love ($55 million).

That’s the market. So if he’s your guy, then pay him like those guys. But tack on some extra for QB inflation. And do it quickly.

Retain linebacker Dre Greenlaw

This doesn’t seem like it should be a huge priority. Greenlaw has never been named to an All-Pro team or voted to a Pro Bowl, has missed 37 of 100 career games due to injuries and is coming off a season in which he played just 34 snaps because he suffered a torn Achilles in February.

But did you see those snaps? The 49ers defense played 68 quarters in 2024 and their best two quarters just happened to be when Greenlaw was on the field. With Greenlaw playing 28 first-half snaps in a 12-6 loss to the division champion Rams on Dec. 12, the 49ers limited Los Angeles to three points, four first downs and 89 yards.

Greenlaw’s eight tackles played a huge role — and it’s no coincidence that linebacker Fred Warner had a career-high 15 tackles in that game — but there’s something about Greenlaw’s mere menacing presence that makes the 49ers better. This team needs his nasty.

Greenlaw has seven career unnecessary roughness penalties and has been ejected from two games. He’s combustible. And invaluable. The 49ers are 44-20 in games Greenlaw has played in his six-season career and are 16-20 when he’s sidelined. Go find the clip of Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes’ reaction when Greenlaw was injured in the second quarter in Super Bowl LVIII. He clearly knew how much Greenlaw meant.

Warner, who spent much of the season bemoaning the defense’s inability to play to their lofty standard, noted Greenlaw allowed them to briefly recapture their swagger against the Rams.

“Just having him back out there, you can see it,” Warner said. “It jumped off the tape.”

In most cases, it makes sense to not overpay for a linebacker with a large medical file who is coming off a season in which he failed to finish a game. In this case, the 49ers can’t afford to not take the risk.

Draft linemen. A lot of them

The 49ers have four picks in the first three rounds of the NFL draft. And they should use them all on linemen: Let’s say an offensive tackle, guard/center, defensive tackle and an edge rusher?

Yes, we know drafts are fluid and teams must be prepared to pivot and blah, blah, blah. But the 49ers can’t lose sight of the larger point here: They need to get better — much better — in the spots where the NFL has its biggest bodies.

On defense, they have a screaming need at tackle. They will release Javon Hargrave after doing the same with Armstead last year, leaving them with Collins, Jordan Elliott and Kevin Givens as their top options. Those guys are decent, but Armstead and Hargrave are difference makers. So use the No. 11 pick on Michigan’s Mason Graham, the best interior lineman available.

If Graham isn’t around? There’s also a need for an offensive tackle, where the 49ers could upgrade from Colton McKivitz with a rookie who could eventually replace Williams, who will turn 37 in July and missed the final seven games with the latest in a long string of ankle injuries. There could be two appealing options — LSU’s Will Campbell and Ohio State’s Josh Simmons — available when the 49ers make their first pick.

And that’s just a start. At edge rusher, the 49ers have Bosa, Leonard Floyd and a drop-off to players such as Yetur-Gross Matos. And, assuming left guard Aaron Banks leaves in free agency, are there any slam-dunk starters on the offensive line beyond Williams and right guard Dominick Puni?

The Rams rebounded from their 5-12 season in 2022 partly because they employed a variation of this address-the-trenches draft strategy. They used their first two picks in 2023, a second- and a third-rounder, on an offensive lineman (Steve Avila) and a pass rusher (Byron Young). And they used their two picks in 2023, a first- and a second-rounder, on defensive linemen (Jared Verse and Braden Fiske). This season Avila was their starting left guard and Young, Verse and Fiske combined for 20.5 sacks before they added five in two playoff games.

Make a free-agent splash at cornerback

A reason to use high-end draft picks on positions such as offensive tackle, defensive tackle and edge rusher? Those positions are among the priciest in free agency, and we just demanded that the 49ers plunk down at least $55 million per year on their quarterback and to make it snappy.

Given some financial constraints, they’d be wise to make their annual free-agent splash on a cornerback after doing just that in 2022 when they signed Charvarius Ward to a three-year, $40.5 million deal. Three years later, Ward is likely to leave in free agency and his expected departure would leave the top of their depth chart with Deommodore Lenoir, Renardo Green and … Darrell Luter? Ever heard of Tre Avery?

Jets cornerback D.J. Reed, a fifth-round pick of the 49ers in 2018, has said he’ll test free agency, but he could be out of their price range. A less expensive option might be the Saints’ Paulson Adebo, a 2021 third-round pick who has 10 career interceptions but missed 10 games last season with a broken leg.