I gotta be honest with y’all. There was a day last summer that I would have picked the apple pie croissant from Butter and Crumbleover the San Francisco 49ers winning the Super Bowl.
In fact, I got up at 6 AM, stood in line for hours, got the last one, and then had to carefully transport my hot, flaky treasure from San Francisco to Sunnyvale by train, scooter, and car. Ninety minutes later, I breathed a sigh of relief when I arrived at my parents’ front door with the apple pie croissant intact. I opened
it and walked in to the sound of my mom throwing up.
She had good days and bad days when it came to keeping food down, and the day before was the rare good day. I so badly wanted her to keep the streak going, so she could try this mash-up of her two favorite foods.
Her cancer made sure that she never had a good day again. She was gone by October. I’ve written before about how she fell in love with the 49ers shortly before I was born, a consequence of her moving to the Bay Area during Steve Young’s prime. My first conscious memory was waking up from a nap because my parents were losing their minds when Terrell Owens caught The Catch II. This will be my first full season without her.
My mom and I bickered a lot when I was younger. 49ers football was our sanctuary. The game would come on, and instead of yelling at each other, we yelled together at the TV. Whatever we were arguing about would shrink down to something so insignificant that we found our way back to each other. Football was her love language, often reconciling an argument by randomly bringing up something she heard on sports radio that morning.
Her other love language was food. Butter and Crumble opened up a few blocks from my apartment in 2023, and that became our local bakery. It opened our eyes to a new type of pastry — not the traditional croissants you can get at an Arsicault but something more new-age, more Shanahan-esque: chimichurri short rib croissants, eggplant parm danishes, chorizo tater tot cro-quiches, banana foster bread pudding. Every month’s menu reveal kept us on our toes.
We started seeking out what we called a “WTF is That” pastry whenever we traveled to a new city. It evolved from my designated role on family trips: the food-finder who had to scour Reddit threads, Instagram pages, and Google reviews to figure out where to eat in a city none of us had been to before. Where’s that town’s version of Butter and Crumble, churning out flavor combinations in their carby monstrosities that would offend the purists?
The only thing less realistic than wishing for one more game and one more pastry to share with my mom is wishing for a fully healthy 49ers team. For the purpose of this season preview, I’m trying to assess this team at its full potential, even though there’s obviously major questions about critical pieces of the puzzle. I went through every game on the schedule, analyzed each matchup through the lens of how I see football, and scouted the opponent city to find the local Butter-and-Crumble-style “WTF is That” pastry I would have shown my mom.
Hours of screen time later, this is the article I wish I could send her. It has everything she would have loved: my thoughts on how the 49ers season will go and zany specialty croissants in random American cities we could have visited… all wrapped up in a very long read for her to fire up on the iPad during her morning coffee on game day. As a fan, I hope to have the problem of missing her extra if they win the Super Bowl rather than feeling relieved that she couldn’t feel the pain of her beloved 49ers falling short, yet again.
The last time I felt that sense of relief was during the playoff loss to Seattle, seeing how the trenches completely collapsed for the 49ers on both sides of the ball. On one side of the ball, the 49ers offense couldn’t get a play off because Seattle just kept disrupting the 49ers at the point of attack. All of Brock Purdy and Christian McCaffrey’s heroics crumble to dust when the play gets snuffed before it has a chance. On the other side of the ball, Seattle’s offensive line was imposing its will and moving around the 49ers’ defenders wherever they wanted.
It only took a couple drives before I mentally checked out to the offseason, scrolling mock drafts and free-agency lists at halftime. Now that we’re finally on the cusp of the regular season, did the 49ers do enough on the offensive and defensive lines to clear the bar set by the Seahawks?
I don’t buy that they did enough to challenge for the #1 seed confidently, but I do buy that they’re capable of winning ~13 games and getting a wild-card spot. So much of their ceiling depends on two bets going right (beyond the implied bet on health):
Bet #1: The offensive line won’t matter, because Kyle Shanahan will be able to create enough spacing by targeting linebackers in the passing game.
The 49ers took care to invest in the make-the-linebackers-lives-hell department in the draft and free agency. De’Zhaun Stribling, Mike Evans, and Kaelon Black all add completely new elements to the offense: real downfield speed and physicality, a legit red-zone + boundary target, and compelling running back options that can keep Christian McCaffrey fresh.
Linebackers across the league aren’t as good as defensive linemen; their coverage skills are frequently the vulnerability for even the elite defenses. There are only a few linebackers in the league not named Fred Warner that can keep up with CMC and George Kittle. I would have preferred more investment at left guard, but who cares about DJ Jones and Zach Allen barreling down the pocket if Brock is getting it out immediately to his star players on a quick pass against Alex Singleton?
If this bet goes right, I think that means they will beat the teams that don’t have good enough coverage linebackers. That means Denver, the Rams, the Chiefs, and the Cowboys are all much more beatable than they seem, as long as the 49ers offensive skill players bring their A-games. Good coverage linebackers can’t offset huge flaws elsewhere in the defense — take the New York Giants, who have such a bad interior defensive line that their run defense would shatter like a flaky croissant shell.
But for those teams that do have good coverage linebackers on top of a more balanced roster, the 49ers will need a different plan than “outlast them in a shoot-out”. Which brings me to the defense…
Bet #2: With Osa Odighizuwa taking up the offensive line’s attention, the pass rush roars to life because all four of the following happen:
- Nick Bosa’s knee holds up
- Mykel Williams comes back from his ACL tear and keeps improving
- Romello Height adapts quickly and thrives in the NFL as a speed rusher
- At least one of the unproven young guys makes a major leap (CJ West, James Thompson Jr, Gracen Halton).
As of now, with Odighizuwa and a healthy Fred Warner in front of a solid yet unspectacular secondary, I’m confident the defense will go from “mediocre” to “competent”. If one or two of that four-leg parley hit, I would be shocked if they can’t handle the rebuilding teams (Cardinals, Raiders, Dolphins), the decent teams with bad quarterbacks (Falcons), and the decent teams with uniquely bad interior offensive lines (Vikings, Commanders).
Once you get to the Seahawks, the Chargers, and the Eagles, you need the 49ers defense to make game-altering plays. The 49ers’ offensive line isn’t equipped to handle those teams’ combination of a monster defensive line, the best non-Warner coverage linebackers in the game, and shutdown cornerbacks/safeties. Their defenses are good enough to take the 49ers offense out of the game, so the 49ers need to do the same.
Without every single leg of Bet #2’s parlay to hitting at the same time, I can’t see the 49ers defense reaching that level. The same goes for the 49ers’ offense’s PAC-12-y-ness focus on their aging skill position players.
They need to make another move to de-risk these gambles. Unless they add someone on the Maxx Crosby, Josh Sweat, or Quentin Nelson tier at the trade deadline in Week 9, they’ll be stuck at a ceiling of 13-4 and a wild card spot.
Those first eight games will determine how seriously the front office is taking this season. They need to go at least 5-3 in order to have this conversation, which entails beating Miami, Atlanta, Washington, Miami, and Arizona at the very minimum. That’s condition number one, necessary but not sufficient. They then need to beat both the Rams and the Broncos to show that bet #1 is working out and that they really are one stud lineman away from beating Seattle in Week 12, the Chargers in Week 15, Philadelphia in Week 17, and any of those teams in the playoffs.
So if they get one win… even just in week 1… you start looking at this whole season differently.
Week 1: W against the Los Angeles Rams. 1-0. Cinnamon roll from Petitgrain.
When I first got my hands on a box of Petitgrain pastries, I thought I’d gravitate toward the lemon pistachio croissant. That would be my “take an OL/DL at #27 overall in the 2026” version of a pastry. I wouldn’t have picked a receiver that early in the draft unless I was sure it was going to be the Petitgrain cinnamon roll of wide receivers.
The Rams game will show us whether these cinnamon rolls are Petitgrain. Despite the Rams’ insane upgrades in their defensive line and secondary, they haven’t done anything about their linebacker room. So while De’Zhaun Stribling and Mike Evans are starting their 49ers careers against two incredible cornerbacks in Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson, if they beat their match-ups and stretch the field, they’ll open things up dramatically for Christian McCaffrey and George Kittle.
McCaffrey and Kittle should have a lot more room to operate against Nate Landman and Omar Speights than ever before. Despite the same offensive line having to deal with Myles Garrett and (later on) Aaron Donald, the 2026 49ers offensive proof-of-concept will be firing away at the middle of the field. Is having the best players in the league at beating linebackers in coverage, supported by an entirely new element of downfield speed and big-bodied boundary-catches, enough to beat a defense like the Rams’?
Don’t get me wrong, it’ll be a shootout. The Rams offense is too good, and the 49ers d-line won’t be ready to disrupt Stafford, Puka, Adams, and their well-oiled running attack. This one is on veteran offensive stars proving that they’re ready to play like veteran stars.
Chalk it up to the jet lag factor, to being overly bullish on Stribling / Evans / Black, to being too optimistic on George Kittle’s comeback + Trent Williams and Christian McCaffrey’s health, or to preseason hopium. But I believe in them. Let’s start this season with a bang.
Week 2: W against the Miami Dolphins, 2-0. Nutella cruffin from Caracas Bakery.
What I love about the Nutella Cruffin is how little it overthinks things. You don’t need some crazy exotic ingredients to make a memorable pastry… if you execute on a simple croissant-muffin stuffed with Nutella, you can go very far.
The Miami Dolphins are dramatically rebuilding. They let go of most of their veterans and have a ton of players on their rookie deals. Sure, they have some decent interior defensive linemen. Zach Sieler and Kenneth Grant might be beating up whoever the hell is playing left guard. Sure, Malik Willis and DeVone Achane are mobile enough to make the defense sweat a little bit.
But the Dolphins have so many holes across their roster that I expect the 49ers to lock in and not fall in the trap. The offense should dominate. This one isn’t complicated. Just enjoy the Nutella Cruffin.
Week 3: W against the Arizona Cardinals, 3-0. Billionaire’s pork belly cruffin from JL Patisserie.
Jenna Leurquin’s Patisserie out of Scottsdale takes the opposite approach from Caracas Bakery: JL’s cruffins are all insanely elaborate and out-of-the-box. Just scrolling their page, I saw a pork bolognese lasagna cruffin, a Guinesss braised beef croissant for St. Patrick’s Day, and even a soccer-ball-shaped croissant for the World Cup. My favorite videos are the ones where they cut open the cruffin and squeeze the filling out.
Observe:
That’ll be the 49ers offense when they attack Arizona’s holes on defense. Mack Wilson isn’t a bad cover, but he’s just one guy, and no amount of Walter Nolen or Budda Baker or Josh Sweat (if he’s even playing) will be enough to stop Brock from laminating the LB2 all day long. The Layer King will be baking the Cardinals into a savory pan Suisse.
Week 4: W against the Denver Broncos, 4-0.
Bannofee crown from Izzio.
After two games against first-overall-pick contenders, it’s time to play a real Super Bowl contender again. Imagine the Rams with a better secondary, a better offensive line, and not-as-good-but-still-excellent quarterback and defensive lines.
But equally bad coverage linebackers.
If Denver got better pass coverage out of their linebackers, their defense would be unbeatable. Alex Singleton serves as the crack of light for the offense, a sliver of hope that they can exploit him out in space.
Last year against the Broncos, Zach Ertz had a 100-yard receiving game while Jonathan Taylor had a 200+ yards-from-scrimmage game. George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey will need to play out of their minds, with some contributions from Kaelon Black, Jordan James, Luke Farrell, and Jake Tones.
Denver will be on the road and coming off a tough opening three-game stretch. Bet #1 is still firing away, but the next week is when we really see where this team’s at.
Week 5: L at the Seattle Seahawks, 4-1. Kimch-eese focaccia from Saint Bread.
Unlike Denver and Los Angeles, Seattle has amazing linebackers in coverage. Ernest Jones and Drake Thomas take away the middle of the field. Their defensive line is as good as it gets, their secondary is elite, their wide receivers are demons, and their offensive line has no weak links. Sam Darnold may be the only exploitable factor here, but you need an S-tier pass rush to make anything happen.
I’ll believe it when I see it, but for now, I can’t see the 49ers beating Seattle during the regular season.
Week 6: W against the Washington Commanders, 5-1. Twice-baked baklava croissant from Yellow the Cafe.
This is the first game the 49ers defense will be tasked with winning. It doesn’t matter that Jayden Daniels has Terry McLaurin and Stefon Diggs. Washington has such a gaping hole at center that you expect Osa, Bosa, and a healthy Mykel Williams to do to Washington what Seattle did to the 49ers.
On the other side of the ball, the Commanders’ defense might be pretty good. Sonny Styles looks like he could be a beast at pass coverage from the linebacker position, while their front seven went through an overhaul. I’m not saying they’re as good as Denver or Los Angeles, but they’re a tough match-up for the 49ers offense.
The 49ers defense just has to play at their floor and not screw this up.
Week 7: W at the Atlanta Falcons, 6-1. Hot dog focaccia from Collete Bread.
The focus on the 49ers defense continues, as the Falcons have a pretty solid roster throughout. LB Divine Deablo is excellent at coverage, and there’s talent in every position group… except for quarterback. Not even Bijan Robinson and Drake London can outrun such a liability in the sport’s most important position.
Raheem Morris, this is your revenge game. Make it spooky for the home team and let’s roll into the Halloween bye with good vibes. I’m already looking forward to seeing Mac Jones’ costume.
Week 9: W against the Las Vegas Raiders, 7-1. Croissant-waffles, Manon.
If any of you are ever considering opening a pop-up bakery on Hotplate or something, here’s my pro tip for going viral. Find something and make it a croissant. We live in an era of cruffins, croquiches, cronuts, and now cruffles. If Kyle Shanahan were a pastry chef, he’d come up with cro-urterback. Don’t be surprised when you see De’Zhaun Stribling take jet sweeps on one drive, lead-block on a run the next, and then channel his sixth-gradePop Warner days by throwing a pass on a trick play.
The Las Vegas Raiders will be a team playing below the Mendoza line. Adding Tyler Lindenbaum and returning Kolton Miler from injury isn’t enough to salvage this historically bad offensive line. Linebacker Quay Walker is a liability in pass coverage, and he won’t get much help from the secondary.
This is the last “easy” game of the schedule until Week 18 against the Arizona Cardinals. The biggest threat to the 49ers this game will be the 49ers, who can easily overlook the Raiders with the gauntlet looming. After that, they face Dallas, Minnesota, Seattle, New York, the Los Angeles Rams, the Los Angeles Chargers, Kansas City, and Philadelphia.
But before they do all that, they have to get through the trade deadline. This game is the hinge point on Bets #1 and #2. I predict them being 8-1 at this point, and I hope John Lynch does his part after the team does theirs.
Week 10: W at the Dallas Cowboys, 8-1. Tiramisu croissant, La Rue Doughnuts.
This is one of my least confident W predictions. It’s predicated on the offense exploding to keep up with the Cowboys and/or the 49ers’ edge defenders playing well enough to take advantage of the Cowboys’ offense’s one weakness at OT.
With Quinnen Williams and Kenny Clark, Dallas has a strong interior defensive line that can mask issues on the edge and in the corners. LB DeMarvion Overshown has the tools to cover well, but he hasn’t shown he’s at the Zach Baun/Ernest Jones/Daiyan Henley level yet. The 49ers offense has their work cut out for them this game.
In my ideal scenario, the 49ers will have traded for someone meaningful by this point, and this is that player’s debut. They’ll immediately have a chance to plug a hole for the 49ers and offer a proof-of-concept on how they take the 49ers to the next level. Short of that, it’s offensive heroics or bust. I’ll bet on the offense, but 51-49.
Week 11: W at the Minnesota Vikings (Mexico City), 9-1. Crab rangoon danish, Diane’s Place.
This will play out similarly to Washington, because Minnesota has a similar profile: great linebackers anchoring an overall good defense, even better wide receivers and running backs, and a talented (yet volatile) mobile quarterback.
So how the hell do the 49ers pull this out against Brian Flores in the Mexico City altitude?
Meet Blake Brandel. A jack of all trades yet master of none, Brandel filled in admirably as a swing guard last year for the Vikings. That’s doable when you’re 6’6 and not good at snapping.
But as the starting center facing the shorter, stronger, faster Osa Odighizuwa? ¡Dios mío!
The 49ers especially need Nick Bosa and Mykel Williams playing well here, allowing Osa to focus on messing things up for Kyler Murray. This one is in the Dallas bucket of low-medium confidence, where I’m really hoping Bet #2 is going strong (or the new trade piece is fully in the groove). If they lose, it’ll be a striking reminder of what could have been… if only they invested more in the trenches.
Week 12: L against the Seattle Seahawks, 9-2. Turkey, stuffing, and cranberry croissant, Petit Pierre.
This game is happening a few days after Thanksgiving. The 49ers could have a lot to be grateful for: a 9-1 record, a stellar offense, and their young players’ continued development. Losing to Seattle shouldn’t dampen those feelings of gratitude. Just stay in the wild card race.
Without a major trade happening, nothing is different from my Week 5 prediction. Get out of this with minimal injuries and focus on stacking wins the rest of the way.
Week 13: W at the New York Giants, 10-2. Shakshuka focaccia, Radio Bakery.
I thought the uber-popular Radio Bakery would have a formidable line, so I went in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. Attacking the interior is how you defeat the lines in New York, because when I walked in, I had the full menu available without waiting more than five minutes.
The Giants are set up like the anti-Broncos in that their linebackers are actually really solid against the pass. Their edge rushers are fierce too… but their defensive tackles are really bad. They were one of the worst run-defending units in the NFL last year, and they traded away their best player, Dexter Lawrence. It’s such an acute weakness that it doesn’t matter how good linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and Arvelle Reese are looking.
This will be a vintage Shanahan run-down-their-throat game. A million runs up the middle for an ugly win.
Week 14: W against the Los Angeles Rams, 11-2. Bourekas “bread” pudding, Borekas.
My mom made bourekas/burek the way Nick Bosa uses the scissor swipe. In a deep bag full of devastatingly good dishes, her cheese-stuffed phyllo dough pastry was the stuff of legends. Borekas in Los Angeles is the only place that comes close, so while you might never be able to meet her or experience her cooking, you can get a sense of what it was like knowing her by trying their spinach and feta borekas.
It’s a simple, traditional dish where you don’t need to get too creative. But for the love of the game, my mom would always come up with crazy variations. I respect that Borekas is also trying to do cool things with the humble burek pastry: pizza borekas, dessert borekas, borekas “bread” pudding, even an open-faced borekas “toast”.
The second 49ers-Rams game will require Kyle Shanahan to whip out the trick-play borekas. Remember when Christian McCaffrey THREW a touchdown against the Rams? It’ll be that kind of game, where the 49ers offense needs to do more than just spamming the linebacker match-up the same way it did last time. You also have a healthier Kittle, a fresher McCaffrey (provided that Kaelon Black and Jordan James keep ascending), a more seasoned Stribling, and if he’s still healthy, a more in-tune Mike Evans.
Week 15: L at the Los Angeles Chargers, 11-3. Carnitas croissant, IZOLA.
Izola in San Diego (they’ll always be spiritually a San Diego team to me) is so good that the Chargers should consider moving back. The bakery has an open-floor setup inside, where the pastry chefs rolling dough and working the ovens operate in full view of the dining section. We sat down right in front of them and noticed that the ovens had a massive touchscreen surface with all these numbers. We talked to one of the staff, and he seemed equally amazed. “I’ve worked at a bunch of top spots,s and I’ve never seen anything like this.” Turns out these fancy ovens could automate the timing of when certain racks of pastries were at certain levels of doneness.
Going from Greg Roman to Mike McDaniel must feel like going from a home oven and the alarm app on your phone to the Izola setup. The Chargers will be explosive this year. They have a soft spot in their interior offensive line, but as good as Osa is, just him alone isn’t enough to truly disrupt such a stacked offense. You need to overwhelm a team like the Chargers, because if you’re not dominating the line of scrimmage, Justin Herbert will make you pay.
Without the Big Trade, I think they lose this game after a short week and a big win against the other LA team. They won’t be able to do the Rams thing against the Chargers, because Daiyan Henley is one of the best non-Fred Warner coverage linebackers in the league. Derwin James is lurking in the backfield while their edges are looking pretty electric.
Who’s got it better than us? Somebody sure does…
Week 16: W at the Kansas City Chiefs, 12-3. Banana pudding croissant, Blackhole Bakery.
Merry Christmas to the 49ers, who get the gift of going to Arrowhead while locked in an NFC wild card race. But no need to be a Grinch! The Chiefs still employ Nick Bolton and Drue Tranquill, who are liabilities in pass coverage, with unproven guys all across their D-line and secondary. As good as DC Steve Spagnuolo is at his job, the 49ers’ starting tight end and running back are better at beating linebackers in space.
Beating Patrick Mahomes in his own home might be the high point of the season, maybe even the whole Shanahan-Lynch era. I can barely believe I’m typing these words after The Bad Frog Man has haunted my dreams for so long. My mom and I debated Mahomes intensely — I begrudgingly appreciated his Steph Curry-like mastery of the game, while my mom couldn’t stand the glazing and claimed the refs were rigging it for him.
Finally, this Chiefs team looks more fallible than it ever has, so it’s time to exorcise those demons once and for all.
Week 17: L at the Philadelphia Eagles, 12-4. Eggplant Harissa Safeha, Majdal Bakery.
Yes, the 49ers beat the Eagles in the playoffs last year, but that’s because the Eagles beat themselves. They had four drops on third down that day, including two because of AJ Brown. Now, they have a new offensive coordinator, a different WR1, Riq Woolen in the mix as the CB3 to their two all-pros, and the same elite linemen on both sides of the ball.
Most importantly, Zack Baun and Jihaad Campbell are in the upper echelon of coverage linebackers. There’s nowhere to hide against the Bald Eagle and his dirty birds. Trench-wise, the 49ers are bringing a knife to a gun fight.
Week 18: W at the Arizona Cardinals, 13-4. Al Pastor Pan Suisse, Valentine.
It’s still TBD when this game will actually be played. Fitting, because it’s a huge open question whether the 49ers will even play their starters. I predict that the wild card chase will come down to the wire, so as much as I want Mac Jones to put on a free-agency showcase, we might need to see the first-string doing their best to throttle those poor birds and help get them the #1 pick in the draft.
Postseason: Loss to Chicago. Mole Verde Croissant, Loba Pastry.
My favorite part of trying to predict 17 football games is the fact that I might be wrong. It’s one thing to spout off hot takes with your buddies. Putting your thoughts down on paper for the world to see means you really have to think things through (especially without using AI). I was intimidated by that for a while, but I’ve learned that that’s the best part of writing these behemoths. I walk away smarter, more thoughtful, and more engaged as a football fan.
Last year, I predicted they’d go 13-4, and they went 12-5. I called Upton Stout out as the X-factor for the defense, and he made one of the plays of the game against the Eagles on a fourth-down PBU. I overlooked Seattle because I thought they had a weak o-line, and they ended up mauling us. I hoped we wouldn’t have to see Mac Jones play, but he did, and it was glorious. I thought Aiyuk would come back. I didn’t think so many guys would get hurt. I hoped I’d get as many games as possible with my mom.
My entire life, 49ers games have been my escape. Nowadays, they remind me even more of what I’m missing. I’m slowly learning that it’s not such a bad thing. The more love you pour into something, the more the losses hurt.
This year, I’m telling myself that the inevitable loss in the playoff won’t hurt as bad, because we can all see it coming from 20 weeks away. Even before last year started, everyone was talking about a multi-year “remodeling” phase to clear the cap and double down on rookies. There’s still enough talent to hover in that upper-middle class zone, but the Super Bowl window is under construction. The anticipatory grief doesn’t make it suck less, but there’s some comfort in knowing what you’re up against.
So my final prediction is that they’ll make the playoffs, maybe win a round or two, but they don’t have enough right now to get past the Seahawks, the Eagles, or even the Bears. The Bears boast one of the best offensive lines in the league. They just added one of the best cover linebackers in Devin Bush, the Super Bowl champion safety Coby Bryant, and are returning All-Pro CB Jaylon Johnson from injury.
Everything changes if the 49ers add one more big-time player on either side of the line. All year long, I won’t be able to escape the feeling of knowing what could be. I hope I’m wrong about that too, because being wrong is the fun part.
