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49ers Fall to No. 6 in Sports Illustrated's Week 2 NFL Power Rankings

For now, the 49ers still get the benefit of the doubt because they're battle-tested. But they're also old and injured. They might not be as dominant as they once were.

Grant Cohn

Sep 15, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) talks with an official before the game against the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images
Sep 15, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) talks with an official before the game against the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images / Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images
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The experts have begun to lose confidence in the 49ers.

For the past few seasons, they seemed like they clearly were the best team in the NFC and probably the second-best team in the NFL behind the Kansas City Chiefs. Now, they're coming off an embarrassing loss to Sam Darnold and the Minnesota Vikings. As a result, the 49ers have dropped from third to sixth in Sports Illustrated's Week 2 NFL power rankings.

"Week 1 wasn’t an aberration but it showed exactly what the 49ers can and can’t get away with when it comes to making something of the 2024 roster," writes SI's Conor Orr. "Injury-riddled, rusty and showing a bit of its age, the 49ers struggled against a Vikings team that went right for the jugular and disallowed Kyle Shanahan’s team from simply putting them through the machinery. Getting hit with the greatest full-field knockout punch of the season from Sam Darnold to Justin Jefferson doesn’t hurt, but expect Minnesota to encourage others to come right at the defending NFC champions."

In order, the top 10 teams in SI's Week 2 rankings are the Chiefs, the Bills, the Lions, the Texans, the Packers, the 49ers, the Buccaneers, the Saints, the Vikings and the Eagles. Which means the 49ers' ranking is somewhat generous. They're ahead of three undefeated NFC teams, including one that just beat them. You could argue the 49ers should be ranked ninth, just ahead of the Eagles who also are 1-1.

For now, the 49ers still get the benefit of the doubt because they're battle-tested. But they're also old and injured. They might not be as dominant as they once were.

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Grant Cohn

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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