If you believe in the Super Bowl Loser’s Curse, you may be a San Francisco 49ers fan of recent vintage.
In 2020, after they lost the Super Bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs, the 49ers experienced an unexpectedly down season in which they won just six games, had a metric crap-ton of players on injured reserve, and became well aware that it was time to remake the roster.
In 2024, after they lost the Super Bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs, the 49ers experienced an unexpectedly down season in which they won just six games, had a metric crapton of players on injured reserve, and became well aware that it was time to remake the roster.
So… here we are again. At the 2025 scouting combine, general manager John Lynch warned everybody that the Band-aid was about to come off from a personnel perspective.
“I think since [head coach] Kyle [Shanahan] and I have been here, we’ve certainly been a top-five … I believe, the No. 2 cash-spending team,” Lynch said in late February. “In the last four years going into the fifth year, I think we’re the fourth-highest cash-spending team. At some point, you have to reset a little bit, or at least recalibrate.
“You can’t just keep pressing the pedal. I think there is some good that can come out of it. We need to get younger.”
Lynch wasn’t kidding, of course. The Deebo Samuel trade was just the first step. In free agency, the team motto may as well have been, “Last one out the door, hit the lights.” The short-term bleed of talent has a lot to do with getting dead cap money out of the building in 2025, and Lynch and Shanahan have built up enough equity to make such a drastic rebuild an employable reality.
Plus, they’ve done this before. The list of players shown the door in 2021 was a lot like this last list, and we all saw how well it worked in the end. With all that new blood, the 2021 49ers went 10-7 in the regular season, and came a few plays away from beating the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship game.
If the 2025 49ers are to reclaim that kind of competitive fire despite a from-the-studs redo, here are three players who will help a lot. In the continuation of our “Hidden Gems” series, we have one underrated veteran, free-agent acquisition, and draft pick the 49ers will hope to see amplifying things from Day 1 in a very different environment.
Underrated 49ers veteran: CB Deommodore Lenoir
Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
The 49ers took Lenoir with the 173rd overall pick in the fifth round of the 2021 draft out of Oregon, and that’s proven over time to be quite the steal — especially during Lenoir’s career year in 2024. Last season, Lenoir allowed 58 catches on 89 targets for 547 yards, 346 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, two interceptions, seven pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 72.6. Moreover, Lenoir was an important defender in multiple roles, with 167 snaps in the box, 565 in the slot or as an overhang defender, and 187 at outside cornerback.
Lenoir also won the 2025 Dwight Clark Legacy Award, “which honors the current player who best exemplifies Dwight’s spirit of teamwork and camaraderie.” In late May, George Kittle, who presented Lenoir with the award, had a lot to say about the fire his teammate brings to the field.
“When you see D-Mo hitting people, getting interceptions, and talking smack to guys, that energy is infectious, and everybody wants to bring that energy like D-Mo does,” Kittle said. “He’s an inspiration to a bunch of guys on the team, and an inspiration to fans that watch him.”
When Robert Saleh became the 49ers’ defensive coordinator again, Lenoir was a bit concerned, because he remembered one instance in which he may have gone overboard when Saleh was the New York Jets’ head coach.
“I made a play, and I had screamed at [Saleh],” Lenoir recalled. “I didn’t know if he was going to remember that. He did. He brought it up in the first meeting [in April]. It was funny, but he’s a very energetic person, and the energy he’s already brought into the room, he’s put a lot of confidence to us in the secondary.”
The fire shows up on the field in all the right ways, which is what matters.
Whether in overhang, in the slot, or outside, Deommodore Lenoir had his best season in coverage in 2024. And he got things done against some of the NFL’s best receivers. pic.twitter.com/m2YiC1E6Uk
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) May 28, 2025
Lenoir may still be a bit underrated in a national sense, but he’s not underpaid. Last November, the 49ers gave him a new five-year, $88,884 million contract with $38,358,889 in total guarantees. With all the talent walking out the door after the 2024 season, the franchise was set on ensuring that Lenoir wasn’t going anywhere.
“Oh, pumped,” Shanahan said on November 13, one day after the deal was done. “Something we tried to do in the offseason, didn’t get it done. They started working on it here a few weeks ago, and for them to finish it up yesterday, so pumped. Can’t say enough about D-Mo. He’s exactly what we want as a Niner. His style of play, how good he’s become, and really just how much he loves football. He’s the same dude every day. I know we were pumped, the guys were pumped. It was huge.”
Underrated 49ers free-agent signing: WR Demarcus Robinson
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One of the 49ers’ low-profile free agency deals this offseason was the two-year, $8 million deal given to former Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Rams receiver Demarcus Robinson. It’s unusual for a receiver to put up his career year to date at age 30, but that’s exactly what Robinson did in 2024. Robinson managed to insert himself into a Rams receiver group beset by injuries, and while he didn’t blow up the outside world with his week-to-week performances, there was enough there to grab Coach Shanahan’s interest.
“Just playing against him. I have a lot of respect for him,” Shanahan said of Robinson at the owners meetings in early April. “I’ve always been a fan of him since he came out of college, but really playing with the Rams these last two years. The style he played with, how physical he played in the run game and the pass game. We always respected his game, and we didn’t want to have to go against him anymore.”
Last season, that physical style showed up more than once when Robinson was tasked to make contested catches downfield. He led all Rams receivers with 22 targets on throws of 20 or more air yards, catching eight of those deep passes for 286 yards and two touchdowns. In a way, he’s a bit like a slightly faster Jauan Jennings — a bully against pesky cornerbacks, and a guy who can roll deep with speed and route awareness with an eye toward turning 50/50 balls into 80/20 balls in his favor.
Kyle Shanahan said that he was tired of Demarcus Robinson beating up his defense, and wanted him on the same side. Robinson is more than just a short-area bully, though — the deep contested catches are pretty impressive. pic.twitter.com/TfrtE19nY0
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) May 28, 2025
Overall, Robinson’s catch rate was nothing to write home about — 35 catches on 69 targets (50.7%) for 602 yards — but when you average 17.2 yards per reception (seventh-best in the NFL last season among receivers with at least 20% of their offensive snaps), you can be forgiven to a point, because you’re the more high-risk target. And, Robinson totaled seven touchdowns on those 35 catches, which is a pretty decent hit rate in and of itself.
Nobody will mistake Demarcus Robinson for a WR1 at this point in his career; and that’s not really his value to the 49ers. His value to the 49ers is to accentuate and amplify Shanahan’s explosive passing game, and to give Brock Purdy a security blanket with some juice. Robinson proved over and over last season that he’s more than capable of doing both of those things.
Underrated 49ers draft pick: IDL CJ West
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The 49ers’ offseason purge hit their interior defensive line especially hard, as Javon Hargrave signed a two-year, $30 million deal with the Minnesota Vikings, and Maliek Collins inked a two-year, $20 million contract with the Cleveland Browns. The Collins loss is particularly strong, as the underrated veteran totaled six sacks, 45 total pressures, and 19 stops last season in 745 snaps.
Among the gentlemen capable of shoring up that load is Illinois’ CJ West, who the team selected with the 113th overall pick in the fourth round of the 2025 draft. West was a major component of a Hoosiers defense that ranked sixth in the FBS in opponent points per game, and helped the team get to the College Football Playoff. West’s numbers weren’t necessarily of the “blow you away” variety with one sack, 25 total pressures, and 22 stops, but it looks a lot better when you consider that he did all that in just 420 snaps. Moreover, West saved come of his best for the best opponents with strong performances against Michigan, Ohio State, and Notre Dame.
Against Michigan in Week 11, West was a particular annoyance for the Wolverines’ offense, with his two quarterback hits, five quarterback hurries, and one tackle for loss. The 49ers could have stopped with that tape alone and taken West in the fourth round, and it would have been completely understandable.
Indiana’s CJ West against Michigan: No matter where he lined up, West pretty much lived in the Wolverines’ backfield. The @49ers got themselves a real one in the fourth round. pic.twitter.com/INRuC3vSTD
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) May 28, 2025
But then, West went to the scouting combine and became one of the stars in as deep a class of IDL as we’ve seen in a very long time. His Athleticism Score of 86 was the second-highest among IDL at Indianapolis, behind only Georgia’s Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins. Given the combination of athleticism and badassery, I think that West has the potential to put up better pressure numbers over time in the NFL.
CJ West’s killer combine will have people going back to his tape with fresh eyes, and that’s a good thing. He’s a pure attack dawg everywhere from 0-tech to 3, and given my love for undersized D-tackles, I’m in. Some Grady Jarrett spice here. pic.twitter.com/g1gfHX7BBX
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) March 1, 2025
At his post-draft press conference, West did indeed mention Grady Jarrett as one of the IDL that has influenced his style. He also name-checked Maliek Collins and Collins’ “nasty spin move,” as well as Akiem Hicks, who was one of the NFL’s more unheralded inside guys for a good long time.
And here was the money quote, when West was asked where he prefers to line up on the front.
“I’m multiple. I can do it everywhere. But my bread and butter is at the one-technique. That’s where I just abuse centers, punch them in the face, be as violent as possible, just creating havoc down there in the middle.”
As they say, tape don’t lie.
(All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus and Sports Info Solutions).