San Francisco 49ers season recap

While they came up just short against the Kansas City Chiefs for the second time in the last four years the San Francisco 49ers still accomplished a lot this season worth celebrating.

The 49ers won the NFC West for the second straight second and reclaimed their throne as the number one seed in the NFC Conference. Let's take a look into their season.

CMC or MVP?

Christian McCaffrey put up an absolutely monster season for the 49ers, winning Offensive Player of the Year and as he led the entire NFL in scrimmage yards with 2,023 yards while also scoring 21 total touchdowns.

McCaffrey, who has had some injury problems in the past, stayed healthy nearly the entire season and had the second most total yards in a season in his career.

Despite the loss he became the first ever player to have 75+ rushing yards and 75+ receiving yards in a Super Bowl.

No matter how he gets the ball, McCaffrey always finds a way to produce and if he continues to stay healthy there’s no doubt he still has some incredible seasons to come.

Offensive side

This was an offense that dominated this season, ranking top 5 in the league per game in passing yards with 257.9, rushing yards with 140.5 and points with 28.9.

Yet another successful season from Kyle Shanahan and the offense as they had 4 players with over 1,000 total scrimmage yards.

Most notably, Brandon Aiyuk had a breakout season this year putting up 1,342 yards and 7 touchdowns being the number one option for the 49ers offense at times.

While it may be difficult to retain all of their key contributors on offense like Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, Trent Williams, Brandon Aiyuk and Christian McCaffrey, they have all of them under contract for at least another year.

Defensive game changers and Injuries

This team was struggling early on in the season but then as players started to get healthy, the defense began to lock in, only allowing 17.5 points per game this season, the third lowest in the league.

Fred Warner and Nick Bosa who have been the staple of this defense for years were making plays and leading this team the whole season.

As always the defensive line were game changers every game and while the addition of Chase Young helped add to that, it couldn’t help the injuries suffered on the next levels.

Star safety Talanoa Hufanga, who was having a tremendous season suffered a torn ACL just a little over halfway through the season.

Additionally a few weeks later Arik Armstead suffered a meniscus injury and missed the final five games of the regular season. While he powered through to play in the playoffs, it noticeably had an impact on him and he will need to get surgery this offseason.

Then just when it seemed like they were out of the storm, Dre Greenlaw suffered a non contact Achilles injury when he was running onto the field during the Super Bowl.

Despite all of these brutal losses, the 49ers defense fought hard this season and they will be back to terrorizing offenses next year when fully healthy.

Mr. Irrelevant

To this day I still believe that Brock Purdy doesn’t get nearly as much credit as he should for the job that he’s done for this team, posting a 20-5 record so far in his career.

The last pick of the draft, was thrown into a game halfway through the season last year after Jimmy Garoppolo went down and he led them all the way to the NFC championship game.

He tears his UCL and then the next year leads them to the Super Bowl after there being talk about him possibly not being the starter this year, putting up 4,280 passing yards and 31 passing touchdowns on the season.

He may not be the flashiest player by any means but he can make off platform throws and can escape the pocket to make big plays with his legs when he needs to.

This is the guy the 49ers have been looking for and with the adversity he’s already overcome, if they put their trust into him, he will eventually get them a Super Bowl win.

Overall

It can be easy to be discouraged after how the season ended as a 49ers fan, but going into the next few years, they still have the talent and coaching to be Super Bowl contenders.

Michael Landis is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, please email mpl5930@psu.edu.