SANTA CLARA, Calif. — With one loss, we’ve gone from “gritty win!” to “the sky is falling!”
Readers are worried about the San Francisco 49ers’ pop-less running game, their porous special teams and, most of all, their ever-growing injury list, which is especially problematic on a short week.
Thanks for all the terrific questions, which, as usual, have been slightly edited for content.
Something is seriously off with the Niners’ run game: out-gained for three successive weeks and zero rushing touchdowns through four games. Very un-Kyle Shanahan-like. It’s beginning to look like a feature, not a bug. What do you think is going on, and what’s the fix? — Barry S.
I’m sure the true answer is that it’s a combination of things, but I have to believe the main reason is personnel-based, that the 49ers have largely lacked explosion on offense. Ricky Pearsall has been, by far, the most explosive player with catches of 45, 34, 31, 26 and 20 yards so far and a per-catch average of 16.4 yards. (Pearsall, who had a bandage on his right knee Tuesday, didn’t practice Tuesday and is iffy for Thursday’s game.)
After him? Demarcus Robinson is probably the next most dangerous target in terms of making defenses play on their heels. He wasn’t exactly a burner as a 22-year-old — he had a 4.59-second 40 before his rookie season — and is now 31.
My point is that playing without weapons like George Kittle (who is also a critical part of the run game as a blocker), Brandon Aiyuk and rookie Jordan Watkins has an impact. Yes, the running game sets up the passing game, but the opposite is also true.
I don’t think the issue is related to Christian McCaffrey. He ranks eighth in the NFL with 305 receiving yards and is on pace to finish with 1,296 receiving yards, which would be easily a career high. Would a player who’s lost a step as a runner be able to set a career high as a receiver?
Who will put up a one-game-wonder, Richie James-like performance on Thursday? — Christoffer A.
I believe Christoffer is referring to James’ nine-catch, 184-yard, one-touchdown performance against the Green Bay Packers on “Thursday Night Football” in 2020 after Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and Kendrick Bourne were placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list. For this Thursday’s game, Aiyuk is out, and Pearsall and Jauan Jennings will likely be questionable.
Best chance for a James-ish performance: Robinson, who will be playing against his former team and who got a lot of repetitions with Mac Jones in the spring and summer.
I know the 49ers brought in Brian Robinson Jr. to be the backup tailback, as he can handle a larger workload if needed. However, with the lack of overall offense explosion, why can’t Isaac Guerendo get more involved as a weapon to spell McCaffrey and get the big rushing gains back on the table? — Daniel M.
I’ve been asking the same question since the team traded for Robinson on Aug. 22. He does not strike me as a Shanahan-system runner, whereas Guerendo is 221 pounds, ran a 4.33-second 40 and averaged 5 yards per carry last season. Most of his carries came in the second half of the season when the offense was missing Aiyuk, Trent Williams and others. Oh, he also averaged more than 10.1 yards per catch.
Guerendo seemed to be having a good training camp until he injured his shoulder. Shortly after that, the team traded for Robinson. Here’s what Shanahan said on Sept. 3 when asked if Guerendo had gotten lost in the shuffle.
“I don’t think that he’s gotten lost,” he said. “I just think he’s competing. I think he was the third back last year, then a couple guys got hurt, and he got an opportunity, and I thought he did well in his opportunity. But that didn’t mean he was the first or second back all of a sudden. He had to come into camp and still compete with guys. He got hurt really early and missed a lot of time to compete.
“We brought Brian in. We’ve studied him over his career, and based off of that, we put him ahead of (Guerendo). That’s how we are starting out, and we’ll see how it goes throughout the year.”
You’ve mentioned multiple half-speed practice Fridays. How do they define that? Are the boys actually not running at all? — Clayton J.
Oh, they’re running. But it’s definitely not as long or as intense as Thursday’s practice, which, according to 49ers who have played elsewhere, is one of the most rigorous sessions in the league. Remember two weeks ago when both Connor Colby (groin) and Watkins (calf) were injured in practice? It’s not a coincidence that those happened on a Thursday.
Most intense in-season practice:
Thursday
Wednesday
Friday
Saturday (literal walk-through)
What is in your early crystal ball as the top need positions in next year’s draft? — GS
I’ll list them 1-5:
Offensive tackle
Tackle
Swing tackle
Someone to protect the QB’s blind side
An understudy for Trent Williams
Also, at the risk of sounding like the University of Virginia honk I am, the Wahoos have a receiver, Jahmal Edrine, who is the spitting image of Jennings in that he loves to block and routinely puts defensive backs on their posteriors. Jennings is scheduled for free agency in March.
How long before John Lynch completes his due diligence and realizes the 49ers need to trade for a defensive end who can generate pressure and sack the QB? — Jesse P.
I’m not picking on Sam Okuayinonu. I respect his hustle and energy, and I think he deserves to be on the roster. But is he a starter? He was in that role three times last season and recorded no sacks and no quarterback hits in any of those games. He started Sunday, got starter-like snaps and finished with no sacks, no quarterback hits and a single quarterback pressure.
All of which is to say, I think — I hope — Lynch already realizes it.
Lynch found a clear, midseason upgrade at kicker. Why is everybody so concerned he can’t do the same for Nick Bosa? — R. Lander
That kicker (Eddy Piñeiro) was a free agent who is now making a league-minimum salary. I don’t think he can find an adequate Bosa replacement in that price range.
Why has Nick Martin been a healthy scratch through four weeks? He was impactful in the preseason. What is the plan to include him on D? — Anjani S.
The problem is that Dee Winters has clearly been better at weakside linebacker, the position at which Martin trained in the spring and summer. That’s not a critique of Martin. He was good. But Winters might have been the 49ers’ top player from spring through the start of the season. An in-his-prime NaVorro Bowman would have had a hard time supplanting Winters.
The other issue is that Martin isn’t ready to back up Fred Warner at middle linebacker like Tatum Bethune and Curtis Robinson can, and the coaches don’t think he’s better than Bethune, Robinson or Luke Gifford on special teams.
That said, Bethune, Robinson and Gifford were all on the field when the Jacksonville Jaguars returned a punt 87 yards for a touchdown Sunday, and none got even a finger on Parker Washington. So if the 49ers want to shake up that unit, they could do so with Martin, perhaps in place of Bethune.
That punt coverage team is awful. It’s as if the 49ers took the 11 slowest guys on the 53-man roster and put them all on punt coverage. — Brett F.
These were the 11 players on punt coverage, along with their pre-draft 40 times, if known:
RB Guerendo: 4.33 seconds
S Marques Sigle: 4.37
CB Chase Lucas: 4.48
S Siran Neal: 4.56
LB Robinson: 4.60
LB Gifford: 4.68
FB Kyle Juszczyk: 4.71
LB Bethune: 4.77
TE Jake Tonges: 4.77
P Thomas Morstead: 4.88
LS Jon Weeks: N/A
Morstead, who reached a speed of more than 20 mph while trying to run down Washington, said his get-off time is terrible but that once he reaches full speed, he can get moving. He said a number of NFL punters texted him about his impressive wheels after Sunday’s game.
PARKER WASHINGTON 87-YARD PUNT RETURN TD 🐆
📺FOX pic.twitter.com/qBh9JuGW7O
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) September 28, 2025
Will you now be looking at every postgame coaches’ handshake, and if so, will we hear you and podcast co-host Tim Kawakami compare notes each week? — Matt A.
Well, Robert Saleh kinda pointed to Los Angeles Rams head Sean McVay last week, too, as far as sign stealing. So, yes — absolutely.
“They’re almost elite in that regard,” Saleh said of the Jaguars’ coaching staff. “That whole entire tree from Sean to (Minnesota Vikings head coach) Kevin O’Connell, to all those guys, they all do it.”
Multiple previously very successful special teams coordinators have come to SF and failed spectacularly. At what point do we say this is a head coach or organizational philosophy problem? — Mark M.
We reached that point last season when special teams gaffes cost games and helped sink the season. I thought Weeks 1-3 were better (hey, no cataclysmic mistakes!), but on Sunday, one of the 49ers’ persistent problems from years past, poor kick coverage, reared its head again.
The 49ers have dealt with two big issues during the Shanahan regime — injuries and bad special teams. I think there’s some overlap there. When someone gets hurt, say Renardo Green, an understudy who’s been practicing special teams, for example, Darrell Luter Jr., gets taken out of his special teams role, and a new guy fills in. That is, it’s harder to build continuity on special teams when the roster is banged up. And the 49ers’ roster is always banged up.
Is it me, or is the injury bug a full-blown airborne virus at this point? Every week, a team’s star player seems to get hurt. I have to imagine the NFL is worried about its product being diluted. What would you do to remedy the situation if you wielded such power? — Thiago V.
I’m well aware that there is no magical elixir here, but this is what I’d do:
Step 1: Eliminate artificial turf. Authorities are always finding booming black-market marijuana operations that grow the plant indoors or underground. And you’re telling me a multibillion-dollar franchise can’t grow some Kentucky blue rye for a once-every-two-weeks game?
Step 2: Eliminate Thursday games. Maybe Thursdays should be “Reading Night in America.” We’re getting our butts kicked in education.
Step 3: Go back to 16 games. Or adopt my unassailable 1816 Compromise, which would require players to have rest weekends.
(Photo: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)