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The 49ers Stay at No. 13 in NFL.com's Week 11 Power Rankings

As long as the red zone offense struggles and the special teams are the worst unit in football, the 49ers won't crack the top 10.

Grant Cohn

Nov 10, 2024; Tampa, Florida, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) celebrates after beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
Nov 10, 2024; Tampa, Florida, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) celebrates after beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
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The 49ers won a game this past Sunday, but they didn't improve.

They played down to the Buccaneers, who have the worst defense in the league during the past five weeks and finished only two drives with touchdowns. During the fourth quarter when it seemed the 49ers might lose, Deebo Samuel put his hands on long snapper Taybor Pepper's neck on the sideline.

That's a big reason the 49ers didn't climb the NFL.com Week 11 power rankings despite their victory. They remained at no. 13.

"There was a lot of postgame hand-wringing about how Sunday’s win over the Buccaneers played out, especially coming off a bye, suggesting the 49ers lack the same killer edge they had last season," writes NFL.com analyst Eric Edholm. "They settled for six field-goal attempts and only made three of them. That plus a muffed punt left a lot to be desired. Despite outgaining the Bucs by nearly a 2:1 ratio, the Niners needed maligned kicker Jake Moody to make his final attempt for the game-winner in Tampa. Relying on a kicker to make six kicks was one thing in Week 1, but trying to go back to that well, on the road, in Week 10? Not ideal -- especially considering Moody had missed more than a month with an ankle injury. Christian McCaffrey’s return to the field was steadier. He totaled 107 yards on 19 touches, including a 30-yard catch on a brilliant play from Brock Purdy. As long as the big dogs keep producing, the 49ers are in the race, but they still need some general maintenance."

And as long as the red zone offense struggles and the special teams are the worst unit in football, the 49ers won't crack the top 10.

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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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