{"id":645320,"date":"2026-01-01T10:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T10:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/645320\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T10:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T10:24:12","slug":"49ers-news-2026-is-already-looking-brighter-than-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/645320\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers News: 2026 is already looking brighter than 2025 \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

49ers offense sizzles while Seahawks\u2019 Sam Darnold sputters: Week 17 film review (paywall)<\/a>
\u201cThe 49ers are still a two-back team, but they aren\u2019t lining up in a typical I-formation with fullback Kyle Juszczyk lining up behind Purdy. One of their most effective formations has been the flex with a tight end and Juszczyk lined up off the ball. When Juszczyk goes into motion, he can either keep going and lead block to the strong side, pull up and insert to the weak side or reverse field and lead on a toss to the weak-side perimeter. The 49ers have shown all this on film, so defenses must be ready for every possibility when he\u2019s in motion.\u201d<\/p>\n

49ers\u2019 Austen Pleasants, onetime pizza-delivery man, is improbably back in the game (paywall)<\/a>
\u201cThe story: Not only has Pleasants worked for six teams, three of them twice, since he entered the NFL in 2020 as an undrafted free agent from Ohio University, he\u2019s been forced to pick up other jobs. In 2021, during his first period of football unemployment, the physical education major was a teacher\u2019s aide at Dawson-Bryant Middle School in his hometown of Coal Grove, Ohio, while also working at Giovanni\u2019s Pizza, delivering the \u201cHawaiian\u201d and \u201cPepperoni Pounder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saleh, Kubiak, Purdy preview 49ers-Seahawks Week 18 matchup<\/a>
\u201cAfter the game on Sunday, DB Deommodore Lenoir said he wanted to shadow Seattle Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba. A couple of years ago, Indianapolis Colts CB Charvarius Ward did that here. What are the strengths and weaknesses, the positives and negatives of doing something like that from a schematic standpoint?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a good question. All right. We can go long on this one, but the reality is it\u2019s easy for the guy who travels, right? I got that guy. I\u2019m going to travel wherever I want. But, we\u2019re a zone-based defense, right? So, if it was man coverage, easy for him, but then it is a little bit more difficult for the other guys. Like, how does everybody else align? Do you go match where everyone just picks a number? What if that number\u2019s not on the field? Do you pick a different number? Or is it, alright, we\u2019re all going to align off of DMo? And what if DMo\u2019s in the slot? Does that put the nickel out on number one where he\u2019s not used to being? So, techniques change within your man principles because now you\u2019re in different locations. Alright, now put yourself in zone. You\u2019re trying to match up where he is and you\u2019re matching up now DMo\u2019s in the slot. Does that mean [CB] Upton\u2019s [Stout] now playing corner third, which he hasn\u2019t done all year? And so, there are a lot of new techniques that you\u2019re going to ask a guy to do. It\u2019s very expensive, not for the guy traveling, but for the guys not traveling, if that makes sense. Now, can it be done? Of course it can be done. Do we have it in our inventory? Absolutely. Can we? Maybe. So, we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"49ers offense sizzles while Seahawks\u2019 Sam Darnold sputters: Week 17 film review (paywall)\u201cThe 49ers are still a two-back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,52307,7,6,1161,252,1137,2624,2623],"class_list":{"0":"post-645320","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-49ers-links","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","14":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-news","15":"tag-sanfrancisco","16":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115819358868625794","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645320","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=645320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}