If you went back to the eve of the 2025 regular season and were told the San Francisco 49ers would lose defensive end Nick Bosa to an ACL tear, tight end George Kittle to a Week 1 hamstring injury, quarterback Brock Purdy to a nagging toe injury and then would also regularly be without wide receivers Jauan Jennings and Ricky Pearsall because of other injury-related setbacks, all the while knowing top receiver Brandon Aiyuk was still on the shelf from last year’s ACL and MCL tears, what do you think your guess would be for the Niners’ record after five weeks.
Probably anything but 4-1.
And yet, that’s precisely where head coach Kyle Shanahan has his squad, coming off the heels of three NFC West victories already, triple what the Niners achieved in 2024.
Better yet, through five weeks, San Francisco owns the No. 2 seed in the conference, trailing only the 4-1 Philadelphia Eagles based on the strength-of-victory tiebreaker.
The work Shanahan and defensive coordinator Robert Saleh have done is nothing short of exemplary, and Shanahan has to be in top consideration for the 2025 Coach of the Year award because of it.
Especially when one looks at the stats, which don’t quite make sense when accounting for the 49ers’ record.
49ers are 4-1 despite horrid red-zone TD percentage
True, the Niners have yet to record either a rushing touchdown or an interception this season, the first time since at least 1940 when a team reached this point of a year without either.
As crazy as that is, as long as San Francisco is figuring out other ways to score and generate turnovers, it’s not as critical a stat.
Instead, consider this: The 49ers own a 42.11 red-zone touchdown percentage on the season, which is good for fifth worst in the NFL through five weeks. Only the one-win New Orleans Saints (41.18), the 3-2 Los Angeles Chargers (38.46), 1-4 Las Vegas Raiders (35.71) and the hapless 1-4 New York Giants (31.58) are worse.
Philly, with whom the Niners are vying for top seed, sits atop this crucial category with a 92.31 touchdown-scoring percentage in the red area.
It’s a total contrast, and it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever when considering how both Philadelphia and San Francisco got to the same record with nearly opposite results in the red zone.
So, again, if you went back to the dawn of Week 1 and not only took into account the slew of injuries but also added in the woefully inadequate red-zone performance, you’d probably guess the 49ers had a 1-4 record, maybe 2-3.
Definitely not 4-1.
