The 49ers keep waiting.
They waited months for running back Christian McCaffrey to feel healthy enough to play on not one but two frayed Achilles tendons.
They’re still waiting. McCaffrey might be back in the Niners’ lineup, but his MVP-caliber form has not joined him.
The Niners are also waiting for Deebo Samuel to return to MVP-caliber play all season.
And as of late, they’ve been waiting on quarterback Brock Purdy — himself an MVP candidate last season — to heal from a mysterious shoulder injury and play like the $60 million man the Niners believe him to be.
Three MVP-level offensive players.
Three disappointing seasons.
And one glaring fact going into Sunday’s Week 13 game with the AFC power Buffalo Bills:
The Niners — with five wins in 11 games and riding a two-game losing streak — cannot afford to wait for them to find their best form any longer.
The 49ers’ defense is in a bad place. They can’t stop the run or rush the quarterback, and they’re managing injuries to their best players (and tone-setters) at each level of defense. Defensive end Nick Bosa will miss his second consecutive game with hip and oblique injuries. But now defensive back Deommodore Lenoir is out, too, with what head coach Kyle Shanahan called a “quad contusion” Friday. Oh, and linebacker Fred Warner, who looked like the best defender in football the first three-and-a-half weeks of the season, has been playing on a broken bone in his ankle for the last seven-and-a-half contests.
Suffice it to say that this 49ers’ defense isn’t going to stop perennial MVP candidate Josh Allen and his Buffalo Bills’ offense.
So the 49ers’ offense is going to have to find another gear.
Reaching last season’s level would be a good start, but even that might not be enough to do the job.
But that cannot happen until the team’s best offensive players — the three for whom this Niners’ offense was built — play up to their standards.
It’s been fascinating to hear Shanahan and the rest of the Niners weave through questions about McCaffrey and Samuel’s forms.
“For us to be disappointed that he’s not exactly how he was or just right in MVP form, that’d be unfair with any player,” Shanahan said of McCaffrey this week. “I think he looks real good.”
Regarding Samuel, Shanahan said on Monday, “I think he has the burst he needs.”
That he had to answer questions on those players accordingly speaks volumes, no?
If only those two stars could juke and separate like that on the field.
McCaffrey’s career has been defined by a level of smoothness that had to be seen to be believed.
I swear, TV does not do it justice — McCaffrey, at his best, glides across the field as if he was ice skating on grass.
I haven’t seen anything like that since he returned for the Niners’ Week 10 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (their last win this season.) His 3.5 yards per carry (Ezekiel Elliott is at 3.2 in Dallas) speaks to that.
Is it unfair to hold him to that standard? Sure. Everyone needs time to round into form, particularly if coming off a long layoff. But don’t forget that McCaffrey’s layoff was artificial — the Niners set it to end after the bye week as a hedge against injury. The idea was that he could rest and then hit the ground running for the campaign’s second half. That’s not happened, and for a Niners team that long extinguished any wiggle room, it leaves Shanahan in a bind. When have we seen enough to know McCaffrey’s best isn’t coming? We’re not there yet. But it’s just as clear that some of McCaffrey’s touches in his current form should be going to Jordan Mason or Isaac Guerendo.
If only the Niners had the same puzzle with Samuel, who isn’t even matching Ezekiel Elliott’s standard as a runner — he’s rushed for fewer than three yards per carry this season.
And after averaging 11.5 yards per touch last regular season and 8.47 per touch in an injured (shoulder) postseason, Samuel is averaging only 7.1 yards per touch in 2024.
It’s more than fair to suggest that the duo’s heavy workload has taken its toll. McCaffrey had 339 touches last season and went over 2,000 on his career (regular season and playoffs) last Sunday. That’s a lot of contact.
Samuel, who has played like a crash-test dummy his whole career, went over 600 touches from scrimmage in his career (regular season and playoffs) against Seattle in Week 12. He added one in Green Bay.
And now Purdy, who was unable to play in Green Bay because of a shoulder injury that no one could quite explain (at least publicly) is tasked not just with lifting an offense down its starting left tackle, and No. 1 receiver, but also one that is deficient up front and whose two remaining stars are underperforming.
A quarterback who makes what Purdy is set to make doesn’t get to make excuses — he needs to elevate the players around him to a winning level.
But Purdy hasn’t been paid yet, and until Sunday, we have no idea how limiting that shoulder injury is.
And yet, with all that being true, the Niners almost certainly need to score 30 points on Sunday. This offense has only done that four times this season and not since McCaffrey’s return.
Or, to be more blunt: It needs its MVPs to prove their value.
This team might have acted like it had time to figure things out since the summer, but that is no longer true.
The Niners’ best’s best must come out Sunday if this lost season is to be saved.