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The Worst-Case Scenario for the 49ers in 2024

It's highly unlikely the 49ers will miss the playoffs. But if Purdy misses an extended period of time, all bets are off, because the backup quarterbacks aren't good.

Grant Cohn

Feb 11, 2024; Paradise, Nevada, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan walks off the field after losing Super Bowl LVIII to the Kansas City Chiefs at Allegiant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 11, 2024; Paradise, Nevada, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan walks off the field after losing Super Bowl LVIII to the Kansas City Chiefs at Allegiant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
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All 32 of Sports Illustrated's NFL team publishers recently laid out the worst-case scenarios for the team they cover this season. Here's the worst-case scenario for the 49ers according to yours truly.

"The oldest roster in the NFL finally wears down after three consecutive trips to the NFC championship. Brock Purdy misses an extended period of time due to injury because the 49ers pass protection is their biggest weakness, backup quarterback Joshua Dobbs isn’t good enough to keep the 49ers afloat and they miss the playoffs for the first time since 2020."

Let me also add this: Brandon Aiyuk holds out the first few weeks of the season and the 49ers lose a game or two that they should win, which ultimately costs them a playoff berth.

That's what a doomsday season looks like for the 49ers. Last year, they seemed incredibly confident and hungry heading into the season because they knew they were better than the Eagles and would have won the NFC Championship if Brock Purdy had stayed healthy. And they were right. But they still lost the Super Bowl.

Now they seem borderline depressed and lacking motivation to "climb the mountain again" as they put it. And so instead of focusing on winning, the best players on the team seem to be more concerned with business and their contracts.

To be fair, it's highly unlikely the 49ers will miss the playoffs. But if Purdy misses an extended period of time, all bets are off, because the backup quarterbacks aren't good.

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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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