By Brian Murphy
The Jock Blog is back from a little Hawaii/Thanksgiving double-dip — humblebrag Mafia, unite! — to see that it’s December and . . .
Wait, what?
It’s December and the San Francisco 49ers are *squarely in the mix*!?!?
The no-Nick Bosa, no-Fred Warner, no-Brandon Aiyuk, banged up-Brock Purdy, banged-up Ricky Pearsall, no-Mykel Williams 49ers?
Holy Christian McCaffrey production, Batman. I did not see this coming.
Well, that’s a little bit of a lie. I saw that last-place schedule coming, and always knew it would be the life raft that would keep the 2025 49ers from drifting too far off to sea. Shout out wins over the New York Giants and Cleveland Browns. A 9-4 record could be 7-6 with a little tougher slate, but hey, last place schedule is gonna last place schedule. (Cue the Tim Ryan foghorn sound for you morning listeners.)
That said, Kyle Shanahan and Robert Saleh have done a magnificent job of cobbling together nine wins in 13 tries, given the injury-laden adversity. And while we would have liked to have seen a splashier trade deadline from John Lynch, the 49ers’ general manager just cued up highlights of Skyy Moore, Keion White and Cle Ferrell for your enjoyment. So that’s something.
That leaves us with today’s JB query: How real is this?
Like, not only are the 49ers in the playoffs — can they make some legitimate noise, as I was just saying to third-string linebackers Curtis Robinson and Jalen Graham?
The rational mind urges realism. The 49ers remain personnel-deficient on the defensive side of the ball, coughed up 42 points to the Rams, let Jacoby Brissett set an NFL record for completions and is so sack-depleted, that when Ferrell notched two in Cleveland last Sunday, a giddy fan base felt like Fred Dean and Charles Haley had entered the chat. The 49ers remain a product of their bottom-feeder schedule, and against even mediocre competition like the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans, have stumbled.
All that said . . .
Heck yeah, this is real.
I know. It sounds nuts to say it. The 49ers are missing gigantic chunks of their payroll, but have a restful bye week currently and the atrocious Tennessee Titans on Dec. 14 at Levi’s. That means we can be 10 days out from Christmas, and the 49ers should be 10-4. Say what? That’s bonkers. In addition, the 49ers will climb to at least the No. 6 seed by Sunday evening, after the Bears play the Packers.
Yes, a road trip to Indianapolis is more daunting than it originally looked. But the Colts have lost three of their last four, quarterback Daniel Jones is banged up and playing worse, former 49er DeForest Buckner is hurt and the team is not as airtight as it was when Indy was 7-1.
You going to bet against an increasingly-healthy Purdy, a record-setting McCaffrey and Kyle Shanahan’s playbook in that one?
A Sunday Nighter at Levi’s against the Bears will be critical, and offensive genius Ben Johnson vs defensive genius Robert Saleh is sure to be tantalizing.
A season finale against the Seahawks is obviously scary on some levels, but who knows where the playoff ladder will stand at that point, and if Seattle will rest players? Or who knows if the 49ers will be playing for the NFC West title?
We don’t have enough space in this particular Jock Blog to get into the work Saleh has done, but rest assured, it’s been extraordinary. You hate to fire strays at last year’s defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen, but what Saleh is doing with much less is staggering, including holding back-to-back foes to single-digit point production. Whether it’s coaching up babies like Alfred Collins and Upton Stout, or sophomores like Malik Mustapha and Renardo Green, or the crazy good work he’s done with Tatum Bethune and the linebackers without Warner, Saleh remains one of the shining lights of the Shanahan Era, both in the late 2010s and now in 2025.
This gets back to our general theme. This is all very real. I could not have imagined it when Warner went down on top of Bosa. The easy and obvious thought was that the 49ers were toast. No horses.
Here we are. December. The 49ers squarely in the mix. Man, this is surprisingly fun.
