No, it’s not Super Bowl or Bust. But this week’s spin — and the decision to pay the freight for WR Brandon Aiyuk — are signs the 49ers aren’t blowing it up either.
The 49ers are paying what it takes to keep Brandon Aiyuk for now, which is a signal that they embrace the value of Brock Purdy, which is a suggestion that this is still (mostly) Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch’s team.
That’s some basic NFL transitive deduction, but it’s also good to know. It also makes sense. We’ve found the line that the 49ers’ financial people aren’t ready to cross even in this austere offseason. And that tells us that a complete detonation probably isn’t approaching. Or at least, a detonation — and mass firing — isn’t the sum of all current plans.
The 2025 49ers as currently deconstructed are notably cheaper and less talented and have logically lower expectations than any recent version of this roster. But there’s still a fundamental through-line: The 49ers’ present and future will be about Shanahan, Purdy, and players who fit with Purdy and Shanahan.
The implied and most important part: After shedding a whole bunch of money this cycle, the 49ers are still committed to paying what it takes to maintain the Purdy/Shanahan top billing. That is, if they can sign Purdy to a long-term extension in the next few months. Pretty big caveat, since any new Purdy deal likely will involve more than $120 million in guarantees. But the 49ers’ leaders sure are talking like they expect a deal eventually; it makes sense that much of the cost-cutting has happened in preparation of the big check due to QB1.
“You don’t pay a quarterback if it’s not [someone] you’re certain about,” Shanahan told reporters at the owners meetings in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Tuesday morning.
And the 49ers, as Jed York reinforced later in the day, are certain about Purdy. Who has had great chemistry with Aiyuk when Aiyuk’s been healthy. Which fits perfectly with Shanahan’s offensive system. So the 49ers kept Aiyuk past Tuesday’s deadline trigger for his $23 million option and the guarantee for another $25 million in the future. The 49ers certainly considered trading Aiyuk and letting another team take on that money, but Aiyuk’s ACL injury drastically reduced the bidding. Still, the 49ers could’ve cut Aiyuk. They’ve made some harsh decisions this cycle. Cutting Aiyuk would’ve been bolder than any of them but would’ve fit right in with the theme after they discarded Deebo Samuel and so many other of Aiyuk’s former teammates.
But dumping Aiyuk would’ve left Purdy without either of the high-level wide receivers who were so important to his instant success as a rookie in 2022 and the Super Bowl run the season after that. It would’ve been a major risk to jettison a 27-year-old proven downfield threat. It would’ve likely made Purdy less valuable. And if you’re going to pay somebody $50 million a year or more, you probably should try to make him as valuable as possible.
“I think he’s great,” York said of Purdy. “Especially when you combine him with Kyle [Shanahan] and you combine him with what we have, he’s a heck of a quarterback and we want him to be here for a long, long time.”
Shanahan and Lynch have been involved in the reset decisions
The messaging from the coach and general manager this week has been consistent and has made sense: They hated to lose so many notable veterans, but they knew they were due for something like this after the splurges over recent years.
I doubt that Shanahan and Lynch were quite expecting all of the departures — the urgent, unsuccessful trip to try to get Dre Greenlaw to back out of his verbal agreement with Denver and the odd timing to some other discardings would be a vivid piece of evidence — but they also didn’t go into this blindly. They weren’t battling York and Paraag Marathe over each failed negotiation. There was no quiet mutiny. There’s a lot of work to do with this roster, but they are on board.
“Yeah, I’m part of it all,” Shanahan said. “It’s not [that] you’re just sitting there coaching and all you’re doing is blowing a whistle. I mean, you understand how the salary cap works, to a degree. … You understand how it balances out. That’s why you do have to make some tough decisions. You do that every year. That’s why you can’t always swing for the fence. If you do, that’s going to balance out over the years.”
Tellingly, Shanahan compared bringing Robert Saleh back for his second defensive-coordinator stint this year to the start of this era in 2017, when Shanahan and Lynch inherited a relatively barren roster and hired Saleh to figure out something on defense. Shanahan hasn’t talked like this about any 49ers situation in a long time. They were so comfortable with their offensive and defensive lineups two years ago that they went a little nuts and used a third-round pick on kicker Jake Moody. Oops!
But if you look at the 49ers’ current defensive-line and linebacking depth chart, two of the most important position groups on the team, you can understand what’s going on here. The coaching staff will be slapping together playing rotations on the fly in this training camp at multiple positions. In many ways, it’s 2017 or ’18 all over again.
So the 49ers aren’t really aiming for the Super Bowl this season. Even with all their remaining stars, that’s unrealistic. They might draft perfectly, pull out of a bunch of close finishes, and remain healthy enough to steal 10 or 11 wins. But they absolutely don’t match up with the Eagles, Lions, or Commanders right now. It’s just reality. And Shanahan, to his credit, doesn’t deal in unreality.
“I don’t think it’s about lowering expectations,” Shanahan said. “It’s kind of the position your team’s in. We lost the Super Bowl in overtime before last year. That’s all anyone can think about. … That’s kinda how it was for us last year. We took our shot. This year we had a bad year. We didn’t do good. We didn’t make the playoffs. So all we’re talking about is how to get back to playing good football. And we know we lost a lot of good players. But … what I’m thinking about is how good we can get in the draft. How many people we can add?”
If you think that sounds like a new two- or three-year plan, similar to Lynch and Shanahan’s methodical build-up to their first Super Bowl trip after the 2019 season, well, I agree. They still have Nick Bosa, Trent Williams, Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, Fred Warner, Purdy, Aiyuk, and many others. But they had all of those guys last season, suffered waves of injuries and under-performance, and finished 6-11. And who says the 49ers won’t get hit with more injuries and poor performances in 2025? They’ll be even thinner on the depth chart, so even a light tide of injuries could have more devastating effects.
Stress test for the Shanahan-Lynch-York trio
There’s no NFL plan that can’t be disrupted or toppled by a terrible season. And the 49ers’ power trio already went through a lot last season, added to all the emotional big-game losses before that.
What happens to all their principles and relationships if they can’t turn it around in 2025? Aren’t they risking some of the worst possible outcomes by running into this reset and relying on draft choices and cheap players to fill important immediate roles? Can these guys stick it out together through a reset?
Well, yes. It’s not guaranteed, but it’s very possible that they’re all back together to start 2026, almost no matter what happens this season.
“We knew this was coming,” Shanahan said. “There’s certain things we decided on last year to try to make it a little less going into this year. But we knew it would be big this year. It’s just part of it. I’m not enjoying it. But it’s something we’re going to get through and I think we’ll come out on the good end here in the long run.”
That’s not exactly Super Bowl or Bust. It’s a lot more muted than that because it has to be. We’ll see how it looks and sounds as the new players arrive and hit the field and the old players and coaches make their adjustments. We’ll see if Purdy gets that new deal. This season will feel quite different than the last few. It already has been very different. But some things remain the same. If the 49ers can hold onto that, all will not be lost.