game preview<\/a>, I mentioned the team speed on the roster in the Week 14 rematch with the Seahawks in 2023. That season, Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, and Brandon Aiyuk could be found on the weekly Next Gen Stats leaderboard as the fastest players of the week.<\/p>\nA Niners player topped 20 miles per hour a whopping 16 times that season. The only player to accomplish that feat this season was Dee Winters after his interception with the Colts.<\/p>\n
Jauan Jennings logged the fastest time at 19.23 miles per hour. The other two fastest ball carriers on the roster this postseason were Skyy Moore and Brock Purdy\u2014a far cry from two playoffs ago. It\u2019s not often you see a Kyle Shanahan quarterback standing in the pocket, holding the ball, and waiting for somebody, anybody to separate. It didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n
ESPN\u2019s Nick Wagoner tweeted that the 49ers\u2019 average top speed this year was 12.81 miles per hour, the sixth-slowest in the NFL. Samuel and Aiyuk didn\u2019t test fast at the NFL Combine, but their play speed passed the eye test. That tells us that 40 times aren\u2019t the best way to gauge play speed.<\/p>\n
For example, Jennings ran a 4.7 40 and had the fastest time on offense this season. The play where Jennings reached that speed in the Wild Card round is precisely what the Niners need, a player that can, consistently, turn those intermediate in-breakers into 40+ yard catches.<\/p>\n
Adding speed isn\u2019t limited to the offensive side of the ball. In the Wild Card round, Saquon Barkley easily ran away from Deommodore Lenoir. This past weekend, Jaxon Smith-Njigba had clear separation on Darrell Luter on his end zone touchdown, while getting a hand on running back Kenneth Walker, who was problematic in each of the previous two games.<\/p>\n
The 49ers are slow on the perimeter, and it showed at the worst possible times. The rookies, Upton Stout and Marques Sigle, are unquestionably fast. But the play speed everywhere else in the back-7 did not look like that of a playoff contender.<\/p>\n
Spencer Burford has long been an intriguing option, but he was one of the last picks in the fourth round, who is undersized and an average athlete. Burford, like Ben Bartch, is an unrestricted free agent this offseason. There weren\u2019t enough exposures of Burford learning from mistakes in pass protection to warrant another season as the starting left guard.<\/p>\n
Center Jake Brendel is under contract for another season. He\u2019ll be 34 by Week 1 next season. He\u2019s a quality player and does a lot to help the offense, but this would be the offseason to identify Brendel\u2019s replacement.<\/p>\n
Dominick Puni has two years left on his rookie deal. He\u2019s a player you can win with.<\/p>\n
The 49ers went against two of the best defensive tackles in the NFL in Byron Murphy and Jalen Carter during the playoffs. Seattle and Philadelphia\u2019s interior pressure was king in both games. The playoffs showed that the 49ers should strongly consider investing in the interior offensive line.<\/p>\n
Stealing a page out of Seattle\u2019s book from the 2025 NFL Draft might not be the worst idea. Grey Zabel is arguably the best rookie from that class. But that also goes against the front office\u2019s philosophy. Aaron Banks being selected in the middle of the second round was the highest Shanahan selected a guard.<\/p>\n
The free agent pool doesn\u2019t exactly scream, \u201cInvest in me,\u201d meaning the 49ers must identify a starter in the NFL Draft at left guard.<\/p>\n
Find a blue-chip player in the secondary<\/p>\n
Of the four remaining teams in the playoffs, only the Rams don\u2019t have a blue-chip player in the secondary. As we know, it is an offensive team with an offensive identity through and through.<\/p>\n
The Seahawks have Devon Witherspoon. Nick Emmanwori isn\u2019t far behind. Denver has cornerback Patrick Surtain to erase one side of the field. Safety Talanoa Hufanga was a second-team All-Pro member. New England cornerback Christian Gonzalez had an incredible season in man coverage and allowed one of the lowest success rates along the way.<\/p>\n
San Francisco was more lucky than good against the Eagles during the Wild Card round in coverage. A.J. Brown had a pair of drops that could\u2019ve easily resulted in points had he held on. Would having Nick Bosa back help? Of course. But that doesn\u2019t mean the 49ers can expect to get away with middling cornerback play.<\/p>\n
The 49ers can get out of Deommodore Lenoir\u2019s contract whenever they want to without needing to eat a significant amount of dead money. Assuming they give him another chance in 2026 and it doesn\u2019t work out, the team could save about $16 million in cap space with a post-June 1 release in 2027.<\/p>\n
Renardo Green is on his rookie contract. I liken him to a Carlton Davis: A CB2 who is competitive, but probably not the guy you want to be your \u201cshut down\u201d corner.<\/p>\n
Upton Stout\u2019s upside makes him appealing. The 49ers have found their nickel.<\/p>\n
We will see how Malik Mustapha looks one year removed from an ACL next season. He still has two years left on his rookie deal. Ji\u2019Ayir Brown and Marques Sigle were the other options at safety.<\/p>\n
I could see the 49ers bringing in a player like Cam Taylor-Britt for competition at cornerback. However, if you\u2019re looking for a blue-chip player, that comes through the NFL Draft. Witherspoon, Surtain, and Gonzalez were all first-round picks. Emmanwori was drafted third overall in the second round.<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s a safety or a corner, the 49ers need to walk away from the draft with a blue-chip player in the secondary. They just spent the last draft upgrading the trenches on defense. Bosa and Mykel Williams returning from injury is how they\u2019ll upgrade the pass rush. That\u2019ll allow every other player to be a rotational piece.<\/p>\n
The defense was bend-but-don\u2019t-break all season, playing coverage to keep things in front of them. They rarely dictated the action. Adding a quality coverage piece this offseason can change how the 49ers attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Francisco 49ers\u2019 35-point defeat was the second-largest margin in a playoff game in franchise history. After…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[7,6,84,83990,1137],"class_list":{"0":"post-689851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-playoffs","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-nfl-playoffs","11":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-playoffs","12":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115924410312825065","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689851","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=689851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}