Financial Hardships and Injuries Define Rams Rivals' Fall From Grace

However, recent years have seen financial issues, injuries, and attitudes wear down the 49ers through training camp holdouts, departures, and the occasional failure to re-enforce key positions.

The 49ers have maintained their superiority on offense through making sacrifices at other positions, but in 2025, Barnwell ranked the 49ers at fourth while the Philadelphia Eagles took claim of the top spot.

"The back-to-back playmaker champs have fallen off their pedestal, with injuries as the primary cause. Brandon Aiyuk will be returning from a torn ACL," wrote Barnwell. "Christian McCaffrey was limited last season to four games by Achilles and knee injuries. McCaffrey had been brilliant and healthy for his prior year-plus with the 49ers, but he has now missed significant time in three of his seven seasons as a starting NFL running back. It's impossible to project injuries, but it's unrealistic to treat McCaffrey as a 17-game starter for the purpose of these rankings. The Niners also soured on Deebo Samuel Sr. and traded him to the Commanders to help ease their cap burden, nominally replacing him with journeyman Demarcus Robinson."

At this point, it remains unclear if and when Aiyuk will return to full strength and McCaffery's injury history has some believing his best days are behind him.

While Demarcus Robinson was excellent for the Rams, he's also an older player in an offense that has Jauan Jennings and Ricky Pearsall.

"There's less to go around here, but the 49ers had the league's most stacked set of playmakers heading into 2024, and that was before Jauan Jennings broke out in a larger role. San Francisco's third-down weapon was a real thing, as Jennings ranked 37th in catches on first and second down, but fifth on third down. He's not Samuel in terms of working after the catch, but Jennings was tough to bring down and willing to make catches in tight quarters, which led to him finishing 12th in ESPN's receiver score this past season. Tight end George Kittle was above Jennings in receiver score, second only to A.J. Brown in the league."

Jennings is on the final year of his deal and is looking to get paid, something that could lead to his departure after the season, especially after Trent Williams said he wants to play for four more years and Brock Purdy signed his massive extension.

"Outside of their standouts staying healthy, the player who might determine where the 49ers land in 2025 is second-year wideout Ricky Pearsall, who was 25th in receiver score while only averaging 1.5 yards per route run. Though he was seemingly able to get open, those opportunities didn't yield targets very often. It's always going to be tough to attract a lofty target share with so many mouths to feed, but if Pearsall can emerge as a legitimate starting wideout, the 49ers will have a strong case to head back up to the top of these rankings in 2026."

Pearsall looked good when fully healthy again, flashing the route-running skills and hands that made the 49ers take a massive gamble on him, selecting Pearsall in the first round.

These rankings do not only warn the Rams that the 49ers are still dangerous, they show the gap between the 49ers and the Eagles to the franchise in terms of offensive talent, something they'll have to make up for in scheme and effort this season.

The good news is that after adding Davante Adams, the Rams are ranked at five, so the gap is shrinking year after year, but the fact that it's still there is concerning.