I got the chance to watch the press conferences from George Kittle and Trent Williams heading into the San Francisco 49ers final game of the 2020 season against the Seattle Seahawks.
And what I want to talk about in this blog is injuries. The only reason the 49ers are 6-9 with one game to go is because of injuries. And you can't convince me otherwise.
Last year, the 49ers went 13-3, were the No. 1 seed in the NFC, cruised to the Super Bowl with two easy playoff wins and had a 10-point lead with 7 minutes to go in said Super Bowl.
This year, 28 guys go on the IR at some point in the season and the team is probably going to finish 6-10.
"If we had the same team we opened camp with, I honestly think we'd be fighting for the No. 1 seed," Pro Bowl left tackle Trent Williams said in a press conference this week. "The proof is in the pudding. They did it last year when they were healthy."
The top talking points this season for the 49ers have been injuries, will Jimmy Garoppolo be back in 2021 and how many in-house free agents can San Francisco afford to keep this offseason?
We will get to those other topics as the offseason progresses. But if San Francisco was healthy, I don't think they lose more than 5 games. The 49ers have proven to be able to beat good teams this year when fully healthy.
Unfortunately, outside of the Week 1 game against Arizona when they blew a second-half lead, the most healthy they were in 2020 came in both games against the Los Angeles Rams. The Rams are likely a playoff team and the Niners swept them.
This team is built around a strong defense and a solid running game. And outside of the injuries, having to play with a backup quarterback all season is the other big reason for the decline in wins. The backup QB, Nick Mullens, and even Jimmy G when he played, just didn't protect the football enough this season.
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The NFC East was pretty bad this year. And the 49ers went 1-3 against that division mostly because they turned the ball over WAY too much against the Eagles, Cowboys and Redskins.
When they don't turn it over, they have won games in 2020 because the defense despite being down a few dudes here and there all season, was still ranked in the top 10 and the running game was still stout when the QB wasn't tripping over himself.
"It's been a roller coaster," Williams said. "We have a Super Bowl roster. It just sucks that we couldn't put those guys on the field enough to win more games. We certainly didn't fulfill our potential."
Kittle pointed out that while the team wasn't healthy for the most part, the positive takeaway is that so many young guys got thrown to the fire and those experiences should help the 49ers and add to their depth for 2021.
"We will be a better in 2021," Kittle said. "One of my biggest takeaways, because of the injuries we had, is that we had guys were able to step up who otherwise wouldn't have gotten the chance in any other year."
The 2020 injuries to Nick Bosa, Richard Sherman, Kittle, Raheem Mostert and others allowed guys like Kerry Hyder Jr., Jason Verrett, Jordan Reed and Jeff Wilson Jr. to get valuable snaps this season.
Verrett could be the Comeback Player of the Year in the NFL as he was outstanding as one of the few 49er defensive players who was healthy most of the year after missing most of the last two seasons with injuries.
Bosa's replacement, Hyder Jr., leads the team in sacks. And Wilson Jr. has really broken out this season and he was only able to do so because Mostert and Tevin Coleman were both hurt this year.
"It was hard to replace Nick Bosa and Richard Sherman and some of the other guys, but the guys behind them got a ton of reps so they are ready to go next year now, too," Kittle said. "Guys behind me when I missed my six weeks got reps, too. That's the positive from being so injured. The young guys were able to get valuable reps that can help us for next year."
Trent Williams' future
The 49ers will have a lot of decisions to make this offseason as they have several in-house players who will be due new contracts from someone.
The biggest must-sign this offseason is Williams as he proved this season to still be one of the best tackles in the game.
Williams addressed his future somewhat in a recent press conference.
"I definitely don't want to be part of a rebuilding process," Williams said. "I am too long in the tooth for that. But I would put our roster up against any other roster. That's how I see it."
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