The San Francisco 49ers were one of two teams that were officially eliminated from playoff contention over the weekend. As a result, head coach Kyle Shanahan will treat the final stretch of the 2018 NFL season as somewhat of an evaluation period.
It is no secret that San Francisco has a number of voids to fill this offseason. According to Jennifer Lee Chan of NBC Sports, Shanahan will use the last four games of the year to identify potential needs this offseason:
“Our personnel department, stuff like that,” Shanahan said. “They will be evaluating stuff that we will look at as coaches as the season ends, as far as the draft, free agency, possible trades. But right now we are evaluating the heck out of our team [and] our coaching staff.
“We've got four games here that are extremely important. There are a lot of tough decisions that we have to make at the end of this year. How guys look, how guys play, how they act.”
Shanahan's comments should come as no surprise. The 49ers have not had much to hang their hat on all year. One of the few positives of their situation is that they are now in a position to give some playing time to the younger players on the roster.
San Francisco had high expectations coming into the season. Their optimism can largely be attributed to their five-game winning streak to end the 2017 campaign and the emergence of quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. Unfortunately, things quickly took a turn for the worst when Garoppolo was sidelined for the season with a torn ACL.
The 49ers have some major re-tooling to do this offseason if they hope to follow through on the hype they built up over the last year. It may very well start with the potential No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.
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