Last season did not go as planned for the San Francisco 49ers. Expected to be one of the best teams in the entire league, the Niners instead crumbled under the weight of various injuries to star players and even backups, and they finished the season with a record of just 6-11.
A disappointing season like that would ordinarily spur changes anyway, but San Francisco also found itself in precarious position due to a combination of factors like age, injury and contract status for various core players. As a result, the Niners turned over a ton of their roster this offseason.
They moved on from players like Leonard Floyd, Charvarius Ward, Deebo Samuel, Aaron Banks and Dre Greenlaw. They also declined to bring back De’Vondre Campbell, Tashaun Gipson, Chris Conley, Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles and more. All of those players are in their late 20s or early 30s. At the same time, the Niners invested heavily in the draft, especially on defense, where they used each of their first four draft picks to bring in Mykel Williams, Alfred Collins, Nick Martin and Upton Stout, then added CJ West and Marques Sigle on Day 3.
“We had to get younger and we had to get a little cheaper because we had some plans on what we wanted to do with our core and, obviously, our quarterback,” general manager John Lynch said, via NBC Sports Bay Area. “And there were some twists and turns, but we executed a plan that we needed to, and we’re really excited with the way it all came together.”
The financial reasons Lynch mentioned for getting younger make sense. The Niners handed out new contacts to Brock Purdy (five years, $265 million with $100 million fully guaranteed), George Kittle (four years, $76 million with $35 million fully guaranteed) and Fred Warner (three years, $61 million with $18.15 million fully guaranteed). When you dole out those kinds of deals, you typically need to find a way to save money elsewhere, and there’s no better way to do that than by cycling onto some rookie-scale contracts, which are cost-controlled for four years.
But the Niners also probably just needed to get younger in general. According to ESPN’s Bill Barnwell, San Francisco was the league’s fifth-oldest team by snap-weighted age in 2024, sporting the NFL’s oldest offense (by almost half a year over the next-closest team) and 16th-oldest defense.
The offense should get younger by virtue of swapping out Samuel’s and Banks’ snaps for younger players like Jauan Jennings, Ricky Pearsall, Brandon Aiyuk (when he returns from injury), Spencer Burford, Dominick Puni and Ben Bartch, among others. That may be offset by players like Christian McCaffrey and Trent Williams staying healthier than they were last year, but replacing Jordan Mason with Jordan James, Eric Saubert with Luke Farrell, Conley with Demarcus Robinson and more should result in an overall younger offense than the one that was the league’s oldest last season.
And what was already a league average-ish defense by snap-weighted age could become one of the youngest in the league. In addition to Williams, Collins, Martin, Stout, West and Sigle, young players like Renardo Green, Ji’Ayir Brown, Malik Mustapha and Dee Winters should see a lot more playing time, and the 49ers also signed mid-career vets like Jason Pinnock, Richie Grant and Tre Brown while trading for Bryce Huff. All of those guys are in their early or mid-20s.
In other words, the 49ers accomplished Lynch’s offseason goal of getting younger and cheaper to keep the stars on the roster and make sure they were appropriately compensation. Now, we have to see whether those guys are up to the task of helping them accomplish their larger goals for the upcoming season.
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