Why the 49ers are Poised for a Rough Start to Their Season

As Shanahan put it, they aren't able to have the training camp they want. All of this is making the 49ers poised for a rough start to the 2025 regular season.

It shouldn't surprise anyone at all if the 49ers look out of sorts against the Seattle Seahawks and lose. When they play Seattle, that will be an intensified practice for them with consequences.

They are going to have to use those games as their opportunities to gel, which means a ton of mistakes are prone to happen.

Take the 49ers' offensive line, for example. They might not have two starters available against the Seahawks with Ben Bartch and Dominick Puni hurt.

The 49ers are going to face a physical Seattle defensive line with a flimsy offensive line. It's going to get scary for the 49ers in that game.

The same can be said for the defense. C.J. West and Mykel Williams are hurt, while Alfred Collins has only practiced for a few weeks. It was expected that the defense would need time with the rookies.

But now it looks as if it'll take longer because those two rookies, and some other players, are missing time. All of those reps lost in training camp have to be made up in the games.

The rough start isn't exclusive to Week 1. This can go on for the first four weeks of the season. What was supposed to be a "walk in the park" schedule is now a grind.

Opposing teams are going to face the 49ers, who are still trying to figure it out because they couldn't do it in training camp.

Starting the season out roughly isn't new to the 49ers. That's how they always started from 2020 to 2022. It's not new to a bunch of players and coaches on the team.

They very well can figure it out as they go and be fine. However, this time they have a lot of young players, which increases the difficulty.

This only makes it critical for the core players on the 49ers to be at their best. Otherwise, the likely rough start to 2025 will snowball and replicate 2024.

Read more 49ers on SI