Disappointing, upsetting, and mediocre.
Those are just a few words to use on how the 2024 season played out for the 49ers. They looked like a team lacking urgency, lacking energy, and lacking focus. Injuries also played a factor, but it wasn’t the top factor for the horrendous season.
Finishing with an abysmal 6-11 record has opened Kyle Shanahan up to a ton of criticism. It’s justified after the 49ers were just in the Super Bowl less than a year ago when their 2024 season finished. There might be some people (like my editor Grant Cohn) who believe Shanahan is on the hot seat going into 2025.
However, that isn’t the reality at all. One down season doesn’t drastically plummet a coach who has taken his team far into the playoffs in four of the last six years. Saying Shanahan is on a hot seat or deserves to be fired is complete hyperbole and a knee-jerk reaction.
He is allowed a down season, but that doesn’t mean he can replicate that next year. Shanahan is on a warm seat entering 2025, not hot. I like to compare the temperature of Shanahan’s seat to a stovetop. In 2024, the stove wasn’t on, but after the season he had, it’s now on a low setting with the potential of reaching a medium heat.
Maybe I was just hungry when I thought of that analogy, but it is without question that the 49ers need to be a winning team in 2025. There’s some pressure to do that and it falls on Shanahan. Getting some of the injured players back should help, but it all comes down to Brock Purdy and what the 49ers do in the offseason.
It all starts with free agency. The 49ers whiffed on almost all of their free agents last year. Only Leonard Floyd was worth the investment. They can’t replicate that failure again. A few free agents need to be fairly impactful and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a starting player. The depth on the 49ers is severely lacking thanks to poor results of the 2022 and 2023 drafts.
Which brings me to the next point: The 49ers have to nail the 2025 draft. They look like they have done that in 2024. Dominick Puni, Malik Mustapha, and Renardo Green were amazing last year. Ricky Pearsall is set to be a key role player and Isaac Guerendo had some flashes. Hopefully, Jacob Cowing can contribute more as well.
The 2025 draft begins with getting the No. 11 pick right. The 49ers have been horrible at drafting in the first round. Will this year be the year they break that trend? They’re going to need it, or Shanahan’s job will be tougher in 2025. It will increase the seat that he is in, and if he leads to another season missing the playoffs, he will officially be on the hot seat.
This offseason is the start for him to keep the heat from getting out of control. He put himself in this situation with his poor personnel decisions in the past few offseasons. It’s largely why the 49ers had a disappointing 2024 season. Winning the offseason factors significantly into winning in the regular season. If they can do that this year, Shanahan will mitigate the heat.
Otherwise, he will start to make the hyperbole from his critics sound logical.
