The San Francisco 49ers have been one of many NFL’s finest franchises within the Kyle Shanahan period, however they’re nonetheless one large step away from the highest of the mountain — successful an precise Tremendous Bowl championship.
They’ll have one other alternative to succeed in that peak per week from Sunday once they play the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs in Las Vegas, and so they might not get a greater alternative to win all of it than the one they’ve in entrance of them.
If it doesn’t occur this season, it could be honest to marvel if it would occur for this core group of gamers and this teaching employees.
Because the begin of the 2019 season, the 49ers have been one of many league’s mannequin franchises by way of success, compiling a 54-29 common season report and reaching the NFC Championship Recreation in 4 of the previous 5 seasons. That features what’s now two journeys to the Tremendous Bowl.
As profitable as they’ve been, the NFL is designed for groups to rise and fall and undergo peaks and valleys. Groups do not have a tendency to remain down for lengthy, and so they do not have a tendency to remain on high ceaselessly. The wage cap, free company and the league’s quest for parity make championship home windows very transient. Groups just like the Tom Brady New England Patriots, and even the Patrick Mahomes Chiefs, are the exception, not the rule.
Simply since you are on high for now could be no assure you’ll keep there or get again the following season.
The 49ers must acknowledge that as they go into this 12 months’s sport.
Particularly since virtually all the things has been aligned of their favor to place them in what could be the absolute best place.
Together with having one of many league’s deepest rosters on either side of the ball, virtually each variable has fallen into place for them. Their two greatest opponents within the NFC — Philadelphia and Dallas — had been eradicated earlier than they needed to play them, ensuing within the 49ers taking part in two youthful, inexperienced groups (Inexperienced Bay and Detroit) that made large errors in crunch time.
They’re additionally catching the Chiefs in a season the place they aren’t fairly as dynamic offensively as they’ve been in years previous. The protection is nice, and so they nonetheless have Mahomes, however this Chiefs group has regarded much more beatable than latest variations of the roster.
The 49ers even have to just accept the truth that their very own roster might by no means be nearly as good as it’s proper now. Within the coming years, they will should cope with core gamers getting one other 12 months older (Trent Williams, George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey, Nick Bosa), make large selections on who they will re-sign and who they cannot beneath the wage cap (Brandon Aiyuk?), whereas additionally coping with a brand new contract for quarterback Brock Purdy.
Proper now they’re getting robust quarterback play for the price of a seventh-round draft choose. That offers a group huge wage cap flexibility in constructing out the remainder of its roster. In one other 12 months or two Purdy might go from counting $1M in opposition to the cap to as a lot as $40M or $50M in opposition to the cap. That modifications the maths on the entire earlier elements fairly a bit.
That is their likelihood. It could be their finest likelihood for fairly some time.