The NFL offseason is a time for reflection. It is a moment for digging deep into that bag of existential curiosity that begs us to ask challenging questions such as, “Who has the most talented roster?”
Plato, it must be said, would have a panic attack if he had to take a crack at assessing the value of Kyle Juszczyk. Socrates, along with ESPN’s Bill Barnwell, would do just fine.
Barnwell ranked the league’s best rosters and came to the conclusion that the San Francisco 49ers — also known as the Fightin’ Sourdough Sams — have the most talented roster in the league.
His logic begins with Christian McCaffrey’s addition to the roster, which, as included in the story, produced results like this:
Aside from McCaffrey, Barnwell credits Deebo Samuel as “clearly the best yards-after-catch receiver in the league,” Brandon Aiyuk for a “ho-hum 1,015-yard, eight-touchdown season,” and George Kittle as having “reinforced his standing as one of the best receiving tight ends in football.”
One area for possible concern Barnwell mentions is the injury history of those players.
Even with Brock Purdy at the helm, though, Kyle Shanahan makes this team compelling.
With that being said, which one of these guys looks like a Shanahan creation? McCaffrey was an even more devastating playmaker during his peak seasons in Carolina. Samuel looks like a preternatural runner in the open field. Kittle is one of the most physically overwhelming players in the league. I don’t think Juszczyk has the sort of route-running ability to rack up chunk plays as a receiver elsewhere, so maybe you can make the case he’s the player being most aided by Shanahan, but these guys would be stars no matter where they go.
If they continue to make Purdy (or Sam Darnold or even Trey Lance) look like a franchise quarterback in 2023, it’ll be hard to argue against the 49ers having the best playmakers in football.
As Aristotle once said about the 2023 San Francisco 49ers, “We are what we repeatedly do… therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit.”
The 49ers have a habit of being lit. Sourdough Samuel said that.
