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Has the 49ers' Super Bowl Window Finally Slammed Shut?

Or will they bounce back next season?

Grant Cohn

Dec 12, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel Sr (1) during the final seconds of the game against the Los Angeles Rams at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
Dec 12, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel Sr (1) during the final seconds of the game against the Los Angeles Rams at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images / Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
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The 49ers were all-in this season.

They spent a ton of money just to keep their team together because they didn't want to take a step back. They felt they were that close to becoming champions. That's why they didn't trade Brandon Aiyuk or Deebo Samuel.

But now they're 6-8, they're in last place in the NFC West and they're going to miss the playoffs. To be fair, they've had lots of injuries and bad luck. So there are reasons to believe the 49ers will bounce back and be dominant next season.

But there also are reasons to believe the 49ers will not bounce back and that their Super Bowl window finally has slammed shut:

1. Christian McCaffrey probably isn't an elite running back anymore. He missed all but four games this season and next season he'll be 29. He's old for a running back. When he was the best offensive player in the league, the 49ers were a juggernaut, but without him scoring touchdowns and carrying the team, they're not nearly as good.

2. They're a few months away from giving an incredibly expensive multi-year extension to a quarterback who has thrown 20 touchdown passes in his past 18 starts.

3. Trent Williams will be 37 in July.

4. Brandon Aiyuk will be coming off a torn ACL, MCL and meniscus and will miss training camp and likely the beginning of the season.

5. Dre Greenlaw, Talanoa Hufanga and Charvarius Ward all will be free agents.

6. Deebo Samuel might still be on the team.

If the 49ers run it back with essentially the same next season, they just might miss the playoffs again.

Tear it down and start over.

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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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