The 49ers spent 2025 proving they could win with roughly half their starting lineup on the injury report, then ran straight into the buzzsaw that went on to win the Super Bowl. Now, with a healthier roster on paper, a new-look receiver room, and a defensive coordinator hire that turned heads around the league, our team breaks down where San Francisco stands heading into 2026.
2025 Season Recap
San Francisco bounced back from a 6-11, last-place finish in 2024 to go 12-5 in 2025, good for the sixth seed in the NFC. That turnaround came despite absorbing the third-most man-games lost to injury in the league — Nick Bosa tore his ACL in Week 3, Fred Warner suffered a dislocated and broken ankle in Week 6, and George Kittle went down with a season-ending Achilles tear during the Wild Card round itself. Christian McCaffrey carried an enormous share of the offense in his own return from injury, piling up 102 catches for 924 receiving yards and 1,202 rushing yards with 17 total touchdowns on his way to AP Comeback Player of the Year, and Kyle Shanahan drew real Coach of the Year consideration for holding the operation together.
The playoff run was a study in contrasts. The 49ers went on the road and upset defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia, 23-19, in the Wild Card round, then ran into a Seattle team that finished 14-3 and claimed the NFC’s No. 1 seed for the first time since 2014 — and were dismantled 41-6 in the Divisional Round — one of the most lopsided losses in franchise postseason history. Seattle went on to win Super Bowl LX, which means San Francisco now sits a tier below the reigning champion in its own division.
Offseason Moves
The biggest defensive change came at coordinator. Robert Saleh, who’d returned to San Francisco in 2025 after three seasons as the Jets’ head coach and helped steady the unit through all those injuries, left this offseason to become the Titans’ head coach. Our team sees his replacement, Raheem Morris, as one of the more interesting hires of the cycle — the former Falcons head coach steps in with real coordinator experience and the job of replacing a well-regarded scheme architect without a major step back.
San Francisco’s clearest offseason need was proven receiving help, and the 49ers addressed it directly by signing Mike Evans to a three-year deal after his entire career in Tampa Bay. It’s a notable bet on a veteran, and it gives Brock Purdy a bigger, more experienced target regardless of what happens with Brandon Aiyuk, who hasn’t played for the team since October 2024 and doesn’t appear to figure into the 2026 plans. On defense, the 49ers traded a third-round pick to Dallas for interior lineman Osa Odighizuwa, a direct move to shore up a pass rush that lost snaps to injury all of last season, and brought back linebacker Dre Greenlaw on a one-year, $7.5 million deal after a three-year run in Denver that never really got going. Perhaps the most important retention of the offseason wasn’t a new face at all — left tackle Trent Williams avoided a threatened holdout by signing a two-year, $50 million extension with $37 million guaranteed, locking down Purdy’s blindside for the next several seasons.
In the draft, San Francisco traded down twice out of the first round entirely, landing its first pick at No. 33 overall — receiver De’Zhaun Stribling out of Ole Miss. The 49ers followed with two more Day 2 selections, edge rusher Romello Height (Texas Tech) at pick 70 and running back Kaelon Black (Indiana) at pick 90, before rounding out the class with offensive and defensive line depth on Day 3.
2026 Season Outlook
San Francisco opens the season in Melbourne, Australia against the Rams in the NFL’s first-ever regular-season game there, part of a schedule that also sends the 49ers to Mexico City for a Week 11 Sunday night game against Minnesota — the first team in league history to play two international games in non-consecutive weeks. The slate includes five 2025 playoff teams (Denver, the Chargers, the Rams, Philadelphia, and Seattle), and the bye doesn’t land until Week 8. The bigger story is the division itself: with Seattle coming off a Super Bowl title and the Rams having just reached the NFC Championship Game, oddsmakers see a real gap between San Francisco and the top two teams in the NFC West, pricing the 49ers as only the third choice to win it.
Our Team’s Projection
We’re projecting the 49ers at 10-7 for 2026. That leans toward the over on San Francisco’s current 9.5-win total (-146 to go over, +120 for the under). The case for the over: a full season of a healthy Bosa, Warner, and Kittle would change this roster’s ceiling more than any single free-agent signing could, and adding Evans gives Purdy a legitimate second weapon alongside McCaffrey. The case for the under: this is still a team replacing a well-liked defensive coordinator on the fly, absorbing an unusual international travel stretch, and playing in a division with two teams that just met in a conference title game — a rough landing spot if the injury luck doesn’t hold this time.
Win total bets like this one live and die on exactly this kind of health-and-scheme reasoning — for more on how season win-total betting actually works, our Bet Smarter breakdown walks through it in more depth.