{"id":301015,"date":"2025-08-19T16:24:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T16:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/301015\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T16:24:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T16:24:12","slug":"how-many-wins-will-the-49ers-improve-by-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/301015\/","title":{"rendered":"How many wins will the 49ers improve by in 2025?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you were a betting human, you\u2019d be profitable if you followed ESPN\u2019s Bill Barnwell\u2019s<\/a> annual column, where he writes about teams most likely to improve. Barnwell is batting 31 for 38 with an average jump of 3.4 wins per 17 games. That\u2019s impressive.<\/p>\n

The San Francisco 49ers were the most popular \u201cworst-to-first\u201d team this offseason. That was before training camp began, and seemingly an injury a day decimated the Niners\u2019 depth chart. The good news is that only defensive tackle Kevin Givens\u2019s injury is believed to be severe.<\/p>\n

So why does Barnwell believe the Niners will take a step forward this season? Mainly because this was a team that was unlucky in 2024:<\/p>\n

While I don\u2019t think anybody could argue the 49ers were disappointing, here\u2019s where I come in to say that they also were quite a bit unlucky. They were the league\u2019s most injured team, ranking 30th in offensive adjusted games<\/a> lost and 31st in defensive adjusted games lost. While you might look toward McCaffrey and Williams and suggest they\u2019re prone to missing time, the 49ers were the fourth-healthiest team by this same metric in 2023, with much of the same core on both sides of the ball. We should see a healthier version of this roster in 2025, which would mean fewer snaps for replacement-level players and street free agents signed out of desperation.<\/p>\n

A year that goes by where the 49ers aren\u2019t unlucky is a surprising one. They\u2019ve consistently been one of the most injured teams in the league under Kyle Shanahan. When that happens, backups are forced into starting roles, and those backups are pulled from special teams, and now your special teams units are full of players who weren\u2019t on the roster two months ago. Hence, there are continuous special teams blunders.<\/p>\n

Barnwell highlighted the 49ers\u2019 competitiveness, noting they blew multiple games in their division. There\u2019s no need for us to rehash those, but regression should favor San Francisco in 2025.<\/p>\n

Barnwell also cited fumble recoveries. The ball didn\u2019t bounce the 49ers\u2019 way last year, as they ranked 27th in fumble recoveries. Nick Sorensen\u2019s defense also only forced two turnovers after the bye week. That\u2019s the worst turnover rate on a per-drive basis in the NFL this century. So, it\u2019s no surprise that you go from one game above .500 to six below .500 when you don\u2019t force turnovers, but you\u2019re giving it away at least once a game.<\/p>\n

There were games last season where Brock Purdy was forced to throw to Ronnie Bell. The Niners are far better equipped at wide receiver this year, where that won\u2019t be an issue\u2014adding that Christian McCaffrey fella to the offense shouldn\u2019t hurt, either. Plus, Year 2 of Ricky Pearsall. Defensively, Robert Saleh won\u2019t go eight games and only force two turnovers. His defense is far too chaotic for that.<\/p>\n

A more manageable schedule with riskier quarterbacks should go a long, long way in the Niners\u2019 success this season:<\/p>\n

Perhaps a better question is how many wins do the 49ers improve by this season? An additional six may sound like a lot, but if you go through the schedule, even playing devil\u2019s advocate, 12 isn\u2019t difficult to get to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you were a betting human, you\u2019d be profitable if you followed ESPN\u2019s Bill Barnwell\u2019s annual column, where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,57081,7,6,1161,252,52067,1137,11446,2624,2623],"class_list":{"0":"post-301015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-49ers","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-comments-community","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","14":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-roster","15":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-news","16":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-schedule","17":"tag-sanfrancisco","18":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115056362509682119","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}