6 burning questions heading into the 49ers season: Can Brock Purdy improve?

While the preseason and training camp only answer questions like who’s on the initial 53-man roster, most of the questions about the 2024 San Francisco 49ers will be answered over the next five or so months.

After another season that saw the 49ers come up short of the primary goal of a championship, 2023 was another building season that showed just how close the 49ers were to that ring. Things like stability at the quarterback position and a solidified running game were answered last season. Still, other issues arose, like the defense seemingly taking a step back or offensive line issues at specific points of games.

So, after another offseason for a team falling short of a championship trying to improve, these six questions will need to be answered en route to the 49ers taking that next championship step.

What does the next step for Brock Purdy look like?

It’s somewhat challenging to fathom what the next step could look like for Brock Purdy. In 2023, Purdy put up numbers that found him in the top three seasons for a quarterback in 49ers history with names like Young, Montana, and Brodie in front of him.

But 2023 was just the first full season for the now third-year quarterback out of Iowa State. With Purdy’s position with all the weapons and the system he’s in, a repeat performance could be seen as a letdown. It’s now about what type of progression Purdy will make in 2024.

Could the progression be protecting the ball better? While his 31 touchdown passes finished third in the league, and his 7.0 touchdown percentage led the league, his 11 interceptions tied for 10th-most, and his 2.5 interception percentage was tied for seventh-highest and was slightly higher than the league average.

Pro Football Focus had Purdy with the 11th-highest turnover-worthy throw percentage of qualified quarterbacks, 0.2 percent higher than Josh Allen, who finished with 18 interceptions in 2023, second-most in the NFL.

2023 was an impressive year for Purdy, but from here on out, it’s how the quarterback improves on his first season as a starter, not how he replicates it.

Can the offensive line hold up?

There seems to be a perception that the 49ers’ offensive line is terrible, but while there’s room for improvement, I don’t believe they are as bad as the general public thinks.

San Francisco quarterbacks were on 6.6 percent of dropbacks in 2023, placing the 49ers slightly above the middle of the pack and better than the league average. The name given the most attention for his 2023 performance was Colton McKivitz, who allowed a league-high 59 pressures and second-highest 44 hurries on 301 pass snaps played, tied for 66th-most pass snaps played on the offensive line.

Right next to McKivitz was Spencer Burford, who allowed 37 pressures and 28 hurries in 2023, meaning 96 of the 49ers 232 pressures allowed (41.4 percent) and 72 of the 179 hurries allowed (40.2) came from the right side of the line.

While McKivitz will be back in his spot in 2024, an injury to Burford opened the door for third-round pick Dominick Puni to take the starting right guard spot. If his preseason indicates what he can be in the NFL, he should be considered an upgrade to Burford.

The left side of the line should look the same, pending the ink drying on a Trent Williams extension before Week 1. While Aaron Banks allowed the third-highest amount of pressures on the 49ers line in 2023 (36), the left side of the line was responsible for zero sacks, so let me state the obvious: getting the Williams contract figured out as soon as possible would be the best-case scenario.

Can Christian McCaffrey be the McCaffrey of 2023? Can he be even better?

What does better than 2023 even look like for McCaffrey? Only 26 running backs in NFL history have finished a season with more than 1,400 rushing yards and 500 receiving yards, with McCaffrey becoming the first to do so since Ezekiel Elliott accomplished the feat in 2018. The feat was accomplished 11 times from 2000-2009 but only four times in the 15 years since.

The last running back to hit the 1,400/500 plateau in consecutive years was Tiki Barber in 2004 and 2005, making Barber, Priest Holmes (2001-2003), Edgerrin James (2000-2001), and Thurman Thomas (1991-1992) the only four running backs to have such seasons in consecutive seasons. What McCaffrey has on that list of names, however, is how few touches he needed to reach the mark.

Of the 26 players to reach the 1,400/500 mark, McCaffrey needed the fewest rushing attempts of the group (272) with the second-highest yards per attempt (5.4) behind only Chris Johnson’s CJ2K year (5.6) to reach the 1,400 rushing yard mark.

The only way for McCaffrey to improve on his 2023 numbers would be an increase in usage, which has some risk/reward. Even with the number of options featured in the 49ers offense, McCaffrey is the motor of the 49ers offense, so an increase in usage wouldn’t be too far out of the question for Kyle Shanahan.

How good will the pass rush be?

In previous seasons, the edges have been featured by Nick Bosa and a rotating cast of characters. In 2023, it was Bosa with Chase Young, Clelin Ferrell, and Randy Gregory. It was Bosa, Samson Ebukam, and Charles Omenihu the year before that.

I could go back several years to prove the point, but we can stop there.

In 2024, however, it’ll be Nick Bosa and Leonard Floyd, with a drop-off in depth from there. The 49ers haven’t employed a two-deep edge rusher room since 2019 when Bosa and Dee Ford combined for 15.5 sacks, but even then, Arik Armstead – who played on the end then – led the team with ten sacks.

It’ll be the Bosa/Floyd show in 2024 (with a touch of Yetur Gross-Matos), but will that be enough? Floyd is the umpteenth attempt to recreate what San Francisco was hoping for with Bosa and Ford nearly five seasons ago, but what Floyd brings that Ford didn’t is availability.

Ford played 16 games the year before moving to San Francisco, but in 2017, he missed 11 games before playing in only 18 games over three seasons for the 49ers. Floyd has played in every game over three teams since 2018, totaling 46.5 sacks over those 99 games. Going over his last four seasons, Floyd has averaged ten sacks per 17 games, a number good to either lead the 49ers or be behind Bosa in any of those four years.

Over the last three years, Bosa and Floyd haven’t combined for fewer than 21 sacks, which took Bosa, Ferrell, Drake Jackson, Gregory, and Young combined (22) to eclipse from the edge in 2023.

The lack of depth on the edge is a far cry from what we’ve become accustomed to seeing from a 49ers defensive line. Still, with Bosa and Floyd in addition to Javon Hargrave (seven sacks in 2023) and Maliek Collins (five sacks for Houston in 2023), San Francisco hopes a top-heavy line will produce more than the array of names last year.

What does the secondary look like at the end of the season?

While we are used to the defensive line having plenty of depth, depth in the secondary is almost a foreign concept to the 49ers. But 2024 is going to be a completely different story. Charvarius Ward will lead the cornerback room alongside Deommodore Lenoir, but outside of that, every option is open for the San Francisco secondary.

San Francisco made plenty of additions to a chaotic cornerback group from last season. After seeing the failures of Isaiah Oliver force the likes of Ambry Thomas and even Logan Ryan into the starting lineup.

The 49ers signed veterans Isaac Yaidom and Rock Ya-Sin while using a second-round pick to select preseason standout Renardo Green. Not only will the 49ers have depth at the spot, but it will have options. Ward obviously will be CB1 out wide, but could CB2 be Lenoir, with Ya-Sin or Yiadom stepping in when Lenoir plays the slot?

Could San Francisco employ Ward and Lenoir out wide and put Green in as the permanent slot option with his impressive preseason?

Safety doesn’t seem to have a clear option either. Talanoa Hufanga will return to the starting lineup at some point after his knee injury last season, but the 49ers not only have talent behind Hufanga but a fountain of youth.

Ji’Ayir Brown stepped in and played well in his five starts after the Hufanga injury, with a pair of interceptions in the regular season and a Super Bowl pick from a Patrick Mahomes pass. Malik Mustapha was another rookie standout in the preseason after the 49ers used a fourth-round pick on the Demon Deacon, so how does he figure into the equation? George Odum and Tracy Walker add veterans to an otherwise youthful group who could also find some playing time, depending on the timeframe for Hufanga’s recovery.

In previous seasons, the 49ers’ pass rush depth would help cover up the lack of depth in the secondary. In 2024, it might just be the opposite.

Will the 49ers win the Super Bowl?

None of the questions on this list matter if the answer to this question is no.

I do not subscribe to the thought that the only way the 49ers season is successful is if they lift the Lombardi in February, but I am getting close. I need help to see how appearing in four of the last five NFC Championship Games, including the previous three, could be considered a failure, especially considering all the non-playoff years this team has had over the last two decades.

But it is starting to get to a point where all of the postseason accolades are beginning to feel empty without that one big win, especially with how close the Shanahan-led 49ers have gotten.

Twice, they have been in prime positions in the fourth quarter to defeat Patrick Mahomes in a Super Bowl, and twice they’ve come up empty-handed. But at some point, you’d figure the bad luck (the easiest way for my simple mind to explain what Mahomes has done to this franchise) would run out, but here we are, in the midst of a run comparable to the mid-90s Buffalo Bills.

Can the 49ers win the Super Bowl? Absolutely. They have more than enough talent in the right spots to do it. But the question here is, will they? I’m not here to answer that question merely to ask it, but if the 49ers fail to win the big one in 2024, could questions about the current regime’s ability to close the deal come into question?