{"id":690904,"date":"2026-01-20T10:13:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T10:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/690904\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T10:13:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T10:13:18","slug":"49ers-news-welcome-to-the-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/690904\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers News: Welcome to the offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

Report: Titans hiring 49ers\u2019 Robert Saleh as next head coach<\/a>
\u201cThe 49ers have Gus Bradley on staff, serving as the team\u2019s assistant head coach and a potential natural successor to Saleh. However, San Francisco is expected to evaluate all of its options.\u201d<\/p>\n

49ers game review: Wide receivers group struggled in Seattle. Are changes coming? (paywall)<\/a>
\u201che tone was set immediately on Rashid Shaheed\u2019s 95-yard, game-opening kickoff return. What happened on the 49ers\u2019 coverage?<\/p>\n

One issue: rookie running back Jordan James.<\/p>\n

The fifth-round pick was lined up on the left side, the second closest to the sideline, and wasn\u2019t blocked as he ran downfield and appeared to have an angle to make the tackle at the 27-yard line, about seven yards from Shaheed. However, James didn\u2019t take a sharp turn and his rounded-off path allowed Shaheed to sprint through a wide alley as James loped behind him. Linebacker Luke Gifford and cornerback Chase Lucas dove at Shaheed\u2019s feet around the 38-yard line and he later avoided the attempted slide-tackle trip by Eddy Pi\u00f1eiro, a former soccer player, en route to the end zone.<\/p>\n

James does have this excuse: inexperience. He arrived Saturday having played 17 special-teams snaps in his NFL career, including nine in the previous week\u2019s wild-card win at Philadelphia.\u201c<\/p>\n

49ers\u2019 rookie Mykel Williams on season-ending knee injury: \u2018It\u2019s been hard\u2019 (paywall)<\/a>
\u201c\u201cBosa\u2019s been extremely helpful,\u201d Williams said Monday. \u201cHe\u2019s like a real big brother. He looks out, he comes in, checks on me, sits down, eats lunch with me, talks to me, asks me about my knee, asks me how I\u2019m feeling. I feel more comfortable leaning on him and asking him for stuff, versus like a lot of other people \u2026 because he\u2019s been through it. He knows exactly what it feels like and how to move.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ranking 49ers\u2019 position groups as their offseason begins (paywall)<\/a>
\u201cThe dominant theme from the 49ers\u2019 season was how well backups and newcomers slid into key roles. The exception was defensive end. Once Nick Bosa and Mykel Williams went down with ACL injuries, no one stepped up. Bryce Huff was leading the team with four sacks in Week 7, but he had no sacks from that point on and didn\u2019t have a single pressure Saturday. Midseason addition Keion White was only marginally more productive. Bosa and Williams are expected to make full recoveries, but those recoveries will spill into the offseason, if not the regular season. It seems like another year in which the 49ers must fortify their edges.\u201d<\/p>\n

49ers locker room postmortem: Kittle\u2019s optimism, and other notes (paywall)<\/a>
\u201cI talked to Ji\u2019Ayir Brown for a while as the locker room started to empty out. He\u2019s simultaneously an honest, reflective person, and someone who has ambitions that might border on delusional. I respect that.<\/p>\n

I think you have to have unrealistic expectations to make it to the NFL and succeed, and Brown and his former JUCO-to-Penn State teammate Jaquan Brisker both pursued an unrealistic path to get where they are.<\/p>\n

I found it particularly interesting hearing how much Brown enjoyed and missed playing nickel. My argument for most of the second half was that Jason Pinnock shouldn\u2019t have been on the field at all. They should have used Brown like they used Deommodore Lenoir last year, and Marques Sigle like Isaac Yiadom\/Renardo Green, where they\u2019d inject them onto the field and slide Lenoir inside on nickel snaps.<\/p>\n

That, in my view, would have maximized Sigle, while limiting his vulnerability, but also maximizing him as a true free safety, with two other safeties to communicate with and face more responsibilities in the box.<\/p>\n

It would be the best of Brown. He said as much.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Playing nickel] taught me a lot about the defense and a lot about myself, and I enjoyed it, bro,\u201d Brown told me. \u201c\u2018I honestly wish it was more of that, that I kept doing throughout the year, because I feel like I was such a great player in that spot, which I\u2019m a great safety as well, but just that nickel spot, it\u2019s a different game down there. So I actually liked it. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Man, I\u2019m glad it fell on my plate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown said he loved being close to the action.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you back there at safety, you might get one or two plays in the game where you could really make a difference,\u201d Brown. \u201cBut when you\u2019re in that fire, every play, it\u2019s a big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Brown was a mixed bag this season, it clearly looked like his best season. Taking on that additional nickel role would have been a lot on his shoulders, but they already trusted him to communicate on the backend more than anyone. There was far more good than bad, and he was great coming downhill in the run game.\u201c<\/p>\n

Two NFL mock drafts have 49ers targeting offensive line help<\/a>
\u201cGordon McGuinness has the 49ers selecting Utah offensive tackle Caleb Lomu with their first-round pick.<\/p>\n

\u201cLomu disappointed as a run blocker in 2025, resulting in a 62.0 PFF run-blocking grade, but his 82.1 PFF pass-blocking grade was impressive,\u201d McGuinness wrote. \u201cThe 49ers need a long-term replacement for left tackle Trent Williams, and Lomu could be the perfect fit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lomu allowed eight pressures and no sacks across 383 pass-blocking snaps last season. While his 82.1 pass-blocking grade marked a career high, his 62.0 run-blocking grade represented a noticeable drop from his 70.1 mark in 2024.<\/p>\n

Josh Edwards of CBS Sports has the 49ers going with a different player in the first round. In his latest mock draft, he has the team selecting Georgia offensive tackle Monroe Freeling.\u201c<\/p>\n

Jauan Jennings emotionally reflects on 49ers tenure ahead of NFL free agency<\/a>
\u201cWhen I first flew in here, I thought I was going to San Francisco, just like everybody else. And you find out fast, it\u2019s Santa Clara. And now it\u2019s home \u2014 quickly turned into home. A run I\u2019ll never forget, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Report: Titans hiring 49ers\u2019 Robert Saleh as next head coach\u201cThe 49ers have Gus Bradley on staff, serving as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690905,"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-690904","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\/115926899657154178","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690904","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=690904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}