Kawakami: My 49ers 2025 season prediction — 11-6 and taking back the NFC West

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It still strikes you when the locker-room doors open and you look at the name plates and see the players walking through.

There’s Christian McCaffrey next to George Kittle, as always. There’s Brock Purdy not too far from Nick Bosa. There’s Fred Warner. There’s Trent Williams. There’s Brandon Aiyuk, Jauan Jennings, and Kyle Juszczyk practically side by side.

The stars who carried this team to three consecutive NFC Championship Game berths not long ago are — for the most part — still in the building, still in their primes, still coached by Kyle Shanahan, and still expecting to win many more games this season.

It’s not all the same, though, after last season’s 6-11 debacle and the ensuing financial and roster reset, which the remaining stars do not deny. Last offseason, the 49ers moved on from Deebo Samuel, Dre Greenlaw, and several other mainstays and committed to filling their spots with younger players.

But after watching Kittle, Warner, Purdy, and Bosa in particular look absolutely fantastic in practices, sensing the calming effect of Robert Saleh’s return as defensive coordinator, and taking note of the new crop of players, you understand that this is still one of the most talented, best-coached teams in the NFC.

That guarantees nothing, of course. They were even more talented last season, and first came the cracks in the foundation, then came the collapse.

In last year’s edition of this (for another publication), I said 2024 was the beginning of the 49ers’ “last chance” era — plenty competitive if their top stars remained healthy, but thin enough and old enough to provide challenges if everything didn’t go right.

Well, obviously, almost nothing went right. I predicted an 11-6 record, and that was actually flipped by the 49ers when all was said and lost. Oops all around.

They’ve still got as many top-line stars as almost any team in the league, though. Until and unless those guys all decline or get hurt at once, 2024 should be the aberration, not the rule. This successful era isn’t at its peak, but it shouldn’t be over. And if young players like Mykel Williams, Dee Winters, Ricky Pearsall, and Renardo Green turn into stars, a new era might start even before the old one is fully gone.

But if anything, there are even fewer certain things about this team — they’re younger, they’re vulnerable in the middle of the depth chart, and they’re even more reliant on their remaining superstars, who are one year older than they used to be.

This season, here are some of the key variables I considered for this prediction.

• It’s been mentioned a lot, by me and others, but this is the easiest 49ers schedule in at least a few decades. Thanks to getting lined up against the NFC and AFC South divisions, and to the fourth-place schedule, there are plenty of bailout stretches to get the 49ers back on track if anything starts to get dodgy.

For instance, look at Games 11 through 16, from Nov. 24 all the way through the second-to-last game of the regular season, Dec. 28:

Home against Carolina, at Cleveland, bye week, home against Tennessee, at Indianapolis, home against Chicago.

Even if the 49ers are a mediocre 5-6 at that point (like they were last year), they could straggle around and go 4-1 in this stretch to get them to the brink of the playoffs. (I also don’t think they’ll be 5-6 heading into this stretch.)

• All NFC teams have eight home games and nine on the road this season. Last season, the 49ers were 4-5 at Levi’s Stadium and 2-6 on the road. There’s no way the 49ers should go 2-6 away from home this season.

The 49ers dislike international games, and for the fourth consecutive season, they don’t have one. Their last trip abroad came in 2022, when they won a “road” game against Arizona in Mexico City. The 49ers haven’t played in Europe (which will host three regular-season games this season) since 2010, when Mike Singletary was the coach.

Alert: The 49ers are due for an international game (they’re hoping for Mexico City again) next season. They’re due for a European trip in the next few years, too.

• The toughest part of the schedule is at the beginning, when they won’t have Aiyuk, and the young players will be very green: Six of the first nine games are on the road, including opening with back-to-back road games (at Seattle, at New Orleans), both on artificial turf.

But of those nine opponents, only the Rams, the Texans, and the Bucs made the playoffs last season.

And after that, it’s cake: Five of the 49ers’ last eight games are at home, and only one of those eight is against a team that made the playoffs last year (the Rams again).

• Beyond the soft out-of-division schedule, the 49ers’ easiest way to pump up the win total is to avoid duplicating last season’s swan dive in NFC West competition.

Last year, the 49ers got swept by Arizona and the Rams, and their only division win was on the road in Seattle.

In 2023, the 49ers were 5-1 in the division on their way to a 12-5 finish. In 2022, they were 6-0 on their way to 13-4.

• McCaffrey’s injuries changed the shape of the 2024 season more than any other factor. The 49ers ran less often and successfully. They couldn’t reliably score touchdowns when they got into the red zone. They couldn’t count on the play-action game that Shanahan loves so much and Purdy runs so well.

McCaffrey has been healthy all summer, or at least seemed to be healthy, until Thursday, when the 49ers announced that he was limited in practice with a calf issue. Of course, he could be fine for Sunday and beyond. Or maybe he won't. Or he could be a lesser player than he was in 2023 even if he plays 17 games. (Good guess: He won't play 17 games.) And while Brian Robinson Jr. is a good backup plan, he’s a fill-in, not a fixture.

But if the 49ers get 75% of Prime McCaffrey this season, instead of the 5% they got last season, that should be worth several wins by itself. If they get a lot less than 75%? That could be a big problem.

• I’ve purposely left out the Jake Moody daily dice roll from this analysis, though we all know specific parts of the 49ers’ season could swing any which way based on late-game kicking.

Field-goal and extra-point kicking shouldn’t be random in the NFL. It was never random with Robbie Gould on the 49ers. But Moody clearly is still in his random phase. And that could put the 49ers in extra jeopardy exactly when they don’t want any part of that. He also might be very good. I have no idea; nobody has any idea.

OK, it all starts with Sunday. Let’s do this my usual way, by weaving through the schedule week by week. It’s impossible to predict injuries or surprising feats of greatness or anti-greatness, but I always try to do this anyway.

Recent Shanahan teams have saved their best for Lumen Field — including last season’s 36-24 victory in Week 6, probably the high point of the campaign. Oh, and by the way, Purdy is 3-0 as a starter in that raucous stadium.

Purdy will do other beneficial things for the 49ers over his career, but just knowing that they have a QB who can and often will beat the Seahawks in Seattle is worth a big chunk of that new $265 million deal.

A Week 1 loss to the Seahawks wouldn’t be devastating, but a victory could be a springboard, with winnable games in New Orleans and back at home against Arizona and Jacksonville after that.

Can the 49ers start 4-0? That’s a lot to ask. But it’s possible. I’ll predict a win Sunday, a win in New Orleans, a loss at home to the Cardinals, and a win over the Jaguars to get the 49ers to 3-1.

This would be a normal run in any other year, but for the 49ers, Games 5 through 10 are set up as the 2025 gantlet.

It starts with a quick-turnaround Thursday-night game against the Rams at SoFi Stadium, which I’ll write down as a loss for the 49ers. Matthew Stafford is already banged up, so it could make an interesting game even more intriguing if Stafford is out for this and the Rams go to QB2, which happens to be old friend Jimmy Garoppolo.

After that comes a long trip to Tampa Bay, where the 49ers barely won last season and included many Moody misses. I think the Buccaneers are a good team, so I’ll mark this down as another 49ers loss. There’s no shame in losing back-to-back roadies to the Rams and Bucs, but if the 49ers reach any crisis point this season, it might come here, at 3-3.

I’ll bank on the 49ers’ stars carrying them through the moment — so I'll give the team a victory over the Falcons back at Levi’s the following week, though that won’t be a gimme.

To close the hardy stretch, I’ve got the 49ers losing at Houston to DeMeco Ryans’ defensive-first Texans, then beating the Giants the following week at Terrible Turf Stadium. That would get the 49ers to 5-4 and not in bad shape at all.

After the 49ers host the Rams in Week 10 and play at Arizona in Week 11, they won’t play another NFC West game until the finale at home against the Seahawks. If the 49ers sweep these two November games, they could possibly take a commanding division lead. That’d be a big jump. Maybe too big to be realistic.

Big question: Will the 49ers’ young defensive players be in full stride by then? The 49ers can survive some confusion early, but they’ll need Williams and the rest at full functioning power by this point of the division race.

Prediction: The 49ers will get so-so results. Some good, some bad, with most of the bad coming on the road, which is typical for young players.

I'll predict a 49ers victory in the Levi’s matchup against the Rams. And I’ll predict a loss in Arizona the next week, which would mean 0-4 against Jonathan Gannon and Kyler Murray over the last two seasons, which will not make the 49ers happy.

At that point, the 49ers theoretically would be 6-5 overall and 2-3 in the division. Given their soft remaining schedule, that might be enough to get them into the playoffs.

The odds say the 49ers probably won’t go 6-0 to close the regular season, but ... well ... where are the prospective losses?

I guess they could lose at home to Carolina in Week 12 if Bryce Young is playing well, but I don’t think McCaffrey would let that happen against his old team. I don’t think they’re losing in Cleveland, even if it’s rainy, but if it comes down to a Moody FG try, watch out.

Shanahan’s 49ers almost always look energized right after the bye, and it’s not hard to predict the same thing this year, when the bye is in Week 13 and their Week 14 opponent is Tennessee at Levi’s.

And maybe the 49ers will have a tricky time with the Colts in Indianapolis the following week, but I don’t see Daniel Jones or Anthony Richardson beating them.

The final two games are at Levi’s: The 49ers already whomped Caleb Williams’ Bears last year, when the 49ers were awful, and I can't imagine a reversal. In this scenario, they’d be 11-5 at this point, on a five-game winning streak, and possibly already clinched as division winners. So I’ll put them down for a who-cares loss to the Seahawks in Week 17.

Which is how I get to the 49ers finishing 11-6 and with a solid seed in the playoffs. I’ll make postseason predictions when and if the 49ers get there, but I do think they’ll get there, mostly by taking advantage of a once-in-a-generation schedule. That’s not a sign of greatness, but it’s better than the alternative.