At 7-1, the San Francisco 49ers are the favorites to win the Super Bowl this season, even after their first loss of the year, as they enter a needed bye week to get healthy.
Coming out of that bye week, though, and looking towards the second half of the season, their team could look different. The 49ers already traded for defensive tackle DeForest Buckner, sending a fourth-round pick to the Indianapolis Colts for the 32-year-old on an expiring contract.
And more could be coming, with the 49ers still
having a few gaps to fill on their roster.
Following the 7-1 start, many have looked for San Francisco to push all the chips in for a Super Bowl this season, which would involve sending serious capital for stars. The 49ers are no stranger to trade deadline moves, although some, most notably the Christian McCaffrey trade, have had more magnitude than others.
Over the years, we’ve seen teams go all in and hurt themselves for the future, while others have taken the pieces they’ve acquired with them on a Super Bowl run.
Does it make sense for San Francisco to go all in here? Let’s make the case for both sides.
Why they should
As I mentioned at the top, the 49ers are the clear favorites to win the Super Bowl currently, followed by the Buffalo Bills, Kansas City Chiefs, Seattle Seahawks, and Los Angeles Rams.
We know the 49ers flaws, with injuries easily being the main issue. But when you look at the NFL, it’s easy to poke holes in nearly every contender. Buffalo’s defense has been a major question mark. Kansas City still doesn’t have those top-tier receiving threats, and their defense lost some key talent over the offseason. Seattle has struggled without Klint Kubiak at times offensively, and Sam Darnold has been erratic. And the Rams have just outright struggled on both sides of the ball at times.
The field is quite wide open right now. And after all the failures and miscues with reaching and winning a Super Bowl in the last few years, this could be San Francisco’s shot to do it all. If they do win the trophy, there’s no worrying talk about going all in at all.
San Francisco also has very few holes on its roster. Realistically, they could just push all their chips in on an edge rusher and call it a day. They could also go for rotational pieces that can be more complementary to their depth.
The 49ers core is getting older. This team is as well-coached as any in the country. It feels like this is the widest-open race San Francisco has been in in some time, hence the idea of going all in. Additionally, the teams underneath them will very likely make trades as well. They’ll need to respond.
Why they shouldn’t
We’ve seen teams make Hail Mary moves that have seriously backfired on them, and the 49ers could be in danger of doing the same.
The 49ers would have to part with legitimate draft capital to go all in, and that could seriously hamper them in future years. We saw the major trade back in 2021 ahead of the draft and the ramifications it had on the 49ers over the next few years with the draft.
In today’s NFL, you need young, cost-controlled talent on your roster to win a Super Bowl, and the 49ers have been doing a good job acquiring that over the last two years to put together a roster that can compete for a championship. Their formula is working.
Going all in could also hamper development, as an edge rusher takes away reps from Keion White and Mykel Williams, among others.
The 49ers have some solid 2027 draft capital with one pick in every round, although they lost a fourth in the DeForest Buckner trade. With as old a roster as they have, and as well as they’ve drafted recently, is it worth it to splurge and lose the capital?
Final Thoughts
I haven’t been a full proponent of going “all in” in years past, but this year’s case feels different for the 49ers. It truly feels like it could be their last shot at such an open title race. Contracts are only going to get more expensive, and the team’s stars are going to continue to age.
There are also inherent flaws in nearly every team around them, and the biggest competition right now comes in the AFC in terms of title odds.
An edge rusher feels like a must. Perhaps that’s all they need to do, but the 49ers have a true chance here to really separate themselves on paper, and it doesn’t have to be an expensive deadline either.
We’ve seen the 49ers draft well and construct rosters as good as any other team in the NFL. They should be able to sustain success even if they lose another draft pick or two, but it would be tough knowing they lost out on a chance for the Super Bowl in a few months because a different contender made the trade they needed to.
