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The San Francisco 49ers’ wide receiver play was up and down all season. For the first month of the season, Ricky Pearsall was their clear go-to threat. However, Pearsall’s PCL injury cost him a good chunk of the season, forcing him to battle through injuries, even after returning in the second half. One player who never had the opportunity to take advantage of Pearsall’s absence from the lineup was rookie wide receiver Jordan Watkins. We all remember Watkins having a strong preseason game, including a big catch. Head coach Kyle Shanahan was asked why a player like Watkins, who could have provided some much-needed speed to a receiving core that relied on Jauan Jennings and Kendrick Bourne for much of the season, didn’t get a chance to play. Surprise, surprise, injuries impacted Watkins’ availability in 2025: Jordan got hurt in his first preseason game with a high ankle sprain, and he needed, he wasn’t ready yet, like 95-percent of guys who come into training camp aren’t. And then you take them through a few preseason games, you take them through an entire training camp and they’ve got a chance to get there for Week 1. And then they usually realize, ‘oh, I’m not totally quite ready. This is what I’ve got to do and maybe I can get there by Week 5, Week 6.’ When you get hurt right away in training camp and you miss a whole training camp it’s a huge window for guys who aren’t quite ready yet. That was their chance to get ready. And then when you come back, where are you when you come back? If it’s off a high ankle sprain, how’s your conditioning now? Alright, now it takes you three weeks just to get your conditioning back to where you can start to have a chance to improve. And when that happens, you have a setback, which he did. And so, you kind of miss that window where you had a chance to gain on people. And then where you sit in Week 12, Week 13 behind a group of guys that are more consistent at this time in their career than you are. And then it just, it becomes unfortunate for those guys. You know, when you have a losing season, you’re totally out of stuff and you just want to give guys chances and that’s all right. But, when you’re trying to compete for one seed, trying to compete just to get in the playoffs, you don’t experiment with that at the expense of the football team. Watkins saw action at wide receiver in Weeks 8, 9, and 10, albeit limited action. The only other time he saw the field was for eight snaps in Week 16. All in all, Watkins played 25 offensive snaps as a rookie. It goes without saying that Watkins did not perform up to expectations after the setbacks he had in practice. Whether it’s due to a lack of physicality, not understanding the plays, or not having a good enough grasp on what it takes to be a pro, it’s clear that something was off. One would think the fourth-round draft pick would be able to play his way onto the field over a Bourne or Malik Turner — two players who weren’t on the roster in Week 1 but were on the field for a two-minute drill in the Wild Card round. In Week 12, Bourne and Skyy Moore saw snaps on offense. The next week, only Bourne sniffed the field outside of the usual trio of Pearsall, Jennings, and Demarcus Robinson. The fact that Moore played over Watkins is slightly concerning. Shanahan said it would’ve taken another injury or two at the position for Watkins to play, while acknowledging what he went through during his rookie year could be a good thing for him: If there were a couple more injuries for these receivers in the last month or so, then Jordan would’ve been up. It wasn’t that he wasn’t capable, it’s that he missed his window to pass some people. And I think that can end up being a good thing for a guy. If they understand why it happens, and they use that from January to March to understand how to come into an offseason to make sure you get ready right…

Christian McCaffrey and 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan have received recognition for their contributions to a remarkable 2025 season for San Francisco, with both named as finalists for awards that will be announced at the NFL Honors ceremony during Super Bowl week. McCaffrey is a finalist in three categories, with the 49ers’ do-it-all running back up for the MVP award, Offensive Player of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year. That follows a season in which McCaffrey racked up 2,126 yards from scrimmage and 17 touchdowns despite often struggling on the ground, averaging just 3.9 yards per carry. McCaffrey was once again devastatingly effective as a pass-catcher, and finished just 76 receiving yards shy of his second season with 1,000 yards as both a rusher and a receiver. The undisputed focal point of the 49er attack, there’s little doubt McCaffrey was the 49ers’ MVP, but he is unlikely to take home that honor, with Matthew Stafford and Drake Maye considered the frontrunners. McCaffrey similarly seems to be a long shot to win Offensive Player of the Year for the second time in three seasons, with Jaxon Smith-Njigba the heavy favorite to claim that award. Instead, look for McCaffrey to likely be named Comeback Player of the Year, his exploits this season coming on the back of a 2024 campaign that was ruined by Achilles and knee issues. Shanahan, meanwhile, is unsurprisingly a finalist for Coach of the Year after guiding the 49ers to a 12-5 record amid another season of incredible adversity on the injury front. It is an award Shanahan has yet to win despite his consistent success with the 49ers over the years. He was a runner-up to Jim Harbaugh in 2019 and to Brian Daboll in 2022. He finished fifth in the voting in the 49ers’ most recent Super Bowl season of 2023. This year, he has stiff competition in the form of Liam Coen, Ben Johnson, Mike Vrabel and Mike Macdonald. Coen, Johnson and Vrabel oversaw hugely impressive turnarounds in Jacksonville, Chicago and New England respectively. Macdonald, meanwhile, turned the Seahawks into a Super Bowl favorite and made his case for receiving the award over Shanahan with how the Seattle defense shut down the 49er offense in Week 18 and in the Divisional Round of the playoffs. Still, it is a regular-season award. The 49ers split their regular-season series with Seattle and, given the injuries the 49ers overcame at quarterback, wide receiver, tight end, on the defensive line, and at linebacker, it’s difficult to dispute the argument that no coach in the NFL did a better job of maximizing the talent at his disposal than Shanahan. Hopefully, the panel of voters that decide the award saw it the same way.

The San Francisco 49ers will need a new defensive coordinator for the fifth straight season after Robert Saleh took a head coaching job with the Tennessee Titans earlier this week. Looking back, the 49ers had DeMeco Ryans as their coordinator in 2022 before he left for a head coaching job with the Houston Texans. They went with Steve Wilks after that, who was fired after the 49ers’ Super Bowl run in 2023 and was replaced with internal candidate Nick Sorensen. The 49ers also moved off him after one season, hiring Robert Saleh after he was let go by the New York Jets. Now, they’re back to the drawing board at defensive coordinator, so who could be some candidates for the opening? Let’s look at five candidates to replace Saleh. 49ers assistant head coach Gus Bradley Bradley’s probably the clear favorite for the job. The 49ers hired him last year as the assistant head coach of the defense under Saleh, and it felt like they were having a successor plan in place, knowing the head coaching interest Saleh would get. Now, even though they’re having their fifth defensive coordinator in five years, they could have some continuity on defense. Of the internal candidates, he’s the top guy for the job. Former Falcons head coach Raheem Morris Morris was recently let go as the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, but he’s been a top defensive coordinator in the NFL and has strong ties to Kyle Shanahan. They coached together in 2004-05 with the Buccaneers, 2012-13 with the Redskins, and 2015-16 with the Falcons. Morris probably isn’t a head coaching candidate for at least another year or two, so there could be some stability there while adding a top defensive coach to the staff. If they can keep Bradley and have Morris, that’s a strong defensive staff along with the rest of San Francisco’s current group. Raiders defensive coordinator Patrick Graham Graham has been linked to the job before and has also garnered a number of head coaching interviews over the past few years. He’s been a mainstay on Las Vegas’s staff through previous head coaching changes, but they’re hiring another head coach this offseason, which could allow him to depart. While the Raiders’ defenses haven’t been great the last few years, Graham has been one of the bright spots on the coaching staff, is well-respected in the NFL, and hasn’t had much talent to work with outside of Maxx Crosby in Las Vegas. Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver On a similar page, Weaver could be an external candidate for the job. He’s gotten a few head coaching interviews this cycle and could be an option for the Pittsburgh Steelers, having interviewed there already. Miami’s defense has also been depleted over the last few years, but Weaver has done a good job and is likely to get a defensive coordinator or head coaching job this cycle if he doesn’t stay with Miami as they search for a new head coach. Seahawks defensive coordinator Aden Durde If you’re going external, it would be smart to target coaching from some of the best defensive coaching trees in the NFL. That list probably starts with Mike Macdonald, who has done a phenomenal job over the last few years with the Baltimore Ravens and the Seattle Seahawks. His current defensive coordinator is Aden Durde, and he’ll probably be a hot commodity in the near future if the Seahawks give him permission to interview elsewhere. Since it would be a lateral move and Durde is under contract, there will need to be permission, and I’m not sure the Seahawks will give that for the 49ers. But Durde is a young, rising defensive coordinator who has been a big part of a strong Seattle defense and is worth giving a call for. Honorable mention: Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz This one comes with caveats, as reports are sharing that the Browns would like to keep Schwartz, either as their full-time head coach or as the defensive coordinator if they go elsewhere at head coach. But in the off chance he becomes available, he could be a…