Even in the most trying moments, when it looked like his career had migrated north to never to return, George Springer refused to lose sense of who he is. Over the 2023 and 2024 seasons, the fearsomeness that had defined Springer’s career vanished. And yet he balked at the idea that numbers would define him. He still believed greatness existed within, and any hope at a resurgence necessitated him being his truest self. Which is why every day when the music in the Toronto Blue Jays‘ clubhouse thumped through the speakers, Springer would start to dance.

“There has to be a lightheartedness about the day,” Springer said. “It doesn’t matter how you’re doing. I’ve kind of always been that way. When things are not going the way, you want ’em to, you tend to try to find and search for things that aren’t there.”

Gone, in this instance, was the power that defined Springer’s game and the dynamism that made him a four-time All-Star. The quest to find them tested Springer’s fortitude and made the 2025 season that much more fulfilling. Because along with his swing, Springer found purpose. The former World Series MVP wanted to take the Blue Jays back to the playoffs, win another championship — and to ride a Royal Canadian Mounted Police horse through the streets of Toronto.

Saturday starts the endgame of that journey. At 4 p.m. ET, the top-seeded Blue Jays will host the New York Yankees in the first of their best-of-five American League Division Series at Rogers Centre. The 36-year-old Springer will bat leadoff, serve as designated hitter and try to carry over his best season in more than half a decade to the time of year that makes him want to dance more than any.

For all of the excellence Vladimir Guerrero Jr. offers, the power Daulton Varsho provides, the timely hitting Bo Bichette brings, nobody mattered more to the 2025 Blue Jays than Springer. His .309 batting average ranked fourth in Major League Baseball, his .399 on-base percentage second, his .560 slugging percentage fifth. Only Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani finished with a higher weighted on-base average than Springer’s .408 mark. It harkened back to Springer’s time with the Houston Astros, when his prolific regular-season performances were capped annually by Octobers worth remembering.

“A lot of people wrote off George Springer, said he’s passed his prime, thought the Houston George that I knew and I hated and I played against was gone,” Blue Jays right-hander Chris Bassitt said. “People thought that was a thing in the past. I’m just proud of George being kind of who he is and never really just being OK with being average.”

Even if age is the ultimate performance suppressor, the sight of a diminished Springer — no longer able to patrol the outfield gazelle-like, cratering to a .674 OPS last year — registered as a surprise. He arrived in Toronto in 2021 on a six-year, $150 million free agent contract to rekindle the glory days of the Blue Jays, who last won a World Series in 1992. Though Springer’s lone championship came with the 2017 Astros later exposed for cheating via a sign-stealing scheme, he had earned a reputation as an annual winner and postseason performer, his 19 postseason home runs tied for sixth most all time.

Playing for a Toronto team swept out of the wild-card round in 2022 and 2023 before finishing in last place in the AL East in 2024 whittled away at that reputation as well as his numbers. It prompted him to embrace the suggestions of Toronto’s hitting coaches — David Popkins and Lou Iannotti joined Hunter Mense — that he prioritizes getting off what they called his “A-swing” more often. Springer’s capacity to swing at high speeds had evaporated in 2024, and it would have been easy to chalk that up to age.

“He was very, very passive at times, and he was very defensive, especially hitting-wise,” Bassitt said. “And this year they have him locked into ‘No matter the count, it’s just aggressive.’ He always feels like he’s on the attack and in control of the bat, and then you make a mistake and he’s ready for it.”

The path to his return was not linear. In spring training, Springer hit .108 in 37 at-bats. He went hitless on Opening Day. Toronto’s staff did not waver in its support. Springer’s body remained pliable and explosive, and Toronto’s coaches were convinced that in time the results would match the quality of his swings. The Blue Jays’ hitting coaches, Springer said, have “done everything they can to make sure that I stay in the right headspace. That even if I hit a ball hard and I’m out, it’s OK. It’s to focus on the process and not the result.”

Outcome eventually caught up to process. His bat speed, which had dipped below 72 mph, approached 74, one of the largest gains in MLB this year and in the upper quartile of the league. He stopped chasing pitches outside the zone. He kept drawing walks. And when he did get off that A-swing, it did extreme damage. He posted an OPS over 1.000 in each of the season’s final three months. Springer’s 32 home runs led the Blue Jays. His all-around game crested as well, with 18 stolen bases in 19 attempts and a thirst to cause havoc on the basepaths.

“His baserunning has been contagious,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “That has set a standard for our team and helped us astronomically.”

On-field Springer, teammates said, is exceeded only by his off-field version. He is beloved in the Blue Jays’ clubhouse, where he serves as the wise man to a batch of 20-somethings. When Varsho spent two months on the injured list with a strained hamstring, the only thing he could guarantee every day was that his phone would ring and he would see Springer trying to FaceTime him. Springer’s support buoyed Varsho through the doldrums of waiting for an injury to heal — and served as lesson time, too.

“One thing that I’ve learned from him is how to be able to shut off your brain after games. He’s the best,” Varsho said. “Whether it’s a good day or a bad day, it doesn’t matter. Once that game’s done with, it’s over. It’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen anybody be able to go right after the game, snap their fingers and it’s like, it’s gone. And it’s honestly very, very impressive. Talk about him postseason-wise: That’s why he’s so good. Because he’s able to turn that brain off really fast.”

That time on the calendar has arrived. The Yankees, who the Blue Jays beat via tiebreaker to secure the top seed and home-field advantage in the AL, come to Toronto still reveling in their wild-card series win against Boston. They know Springer well. He beat them in the wild-card game in 2015. He beat them in the ALCS in 2017. He beat them in the ALCS again in 2019. And now, starting with his 68th career playoff game, he has a chance to do so once more.

“It doesn’t matter who you’re playing,” Springer said. “You’ve most likely already played them. You’ve most likely faced a guy on the mound before you’ve played in these environments. The biggest difference is the overall atmosphere is much more intense.”

With more than 40,000 people packed into Rogers Centre, there are scant few baseball environments more intense than Toronto. And it infuses in Springer all the more energy to fulfill his goal. He wants to celebrate a title by serving as an honorary Mountie for one day, high atop his steed, strolling down a packed-to-the-gills Bremner Boulevard.

The Toronto Police Mounted Unit is happy to oblige. In a recent video, a police officer offered Springer a deal: Win the World Series, and the coolest pony ride this side of HorseCapades is his. The love of these Blue Jays, picked to finish last in the AL East, is endless, and the least the city can do for their most productive player is offer him a ride.

So he’ll step into the batter’s box today against Luis Gil and try to make this October as memorable as April through September. Unleashing his A-swing. Fighting the good fight against Father Time. And dancing all the way.

OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Arthur Jones, a defensive lineman who spent his first four NFL seasons in Baltimore and won a Super Bowl with the Ravens, has died. He was 39.

Syracuse, Jones’ alma mater, said he died Friday morning. The school and the Ravens didn’t give a cause of death in their announcements.

“Arthur’s presence was a gift to everyone he encountered,” Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said. “His big, bright smile, infectious energy and eternal positivity created a presence that continuously uplifted others.”

Jones was a fifth-round draft pick in 2010 and had 8½ of his 10 career sacks in a two-season stretch in 2012-13. The Ravens beat San Francisco in Super Bowl XLVII to cap the 2012 season.

Jones sacked 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick just before a power outage at the Superdome in New Orleans. He also had a fumble recovery in that Super Bowl.

“My heart is heavy today after the loss of Art Jones,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “Art was a truly remarkable person, a dedicated teammate, a relentless worker, and someone any coach would be proud to lead. His love for life, generous spirit, and radiant smile left a lasting impression on everyone fortunate enough to know him.

“He had a genuine gift for connecting with people, bringing joy to the locker room and beyond, and his presence was a source of light within our team and the Baltimore community.”

Jones also spent two years with Indianapolis and a final season in Washington in 2017.

Jones played for Syracuse and was the older brother of former UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones and former Syracuse and NFL defensive end Chandler Jones, a four-time Pro Bowler who won a Super Bowl in New England.

Jones had 38½ tackles for loss at Syracuse, a school record for an interior defensive lineman. He was a first-team All-Big East selection each of his final two seasons.

“Arthur Jones was a tremendous player and even better person,” Syracuse athletic director John Wildhack said. “We were fortunate that Arthur continued to support our football program after his playing career. He impacted many of our student-athletes, always with a smile and uplifting message.”

ESPN’s Jamison Hensley contributed to this report.

This is a sentence I never thought I’d type: Undefeated Vanderbilt is rolling into Tuscaloosa with playoff chatter starting to swirl. And yet, here we are.

The Commodores are 5-0, playing with confidence and looking nothing like the program we’ve come to expect. Across the field is Alabama; 3-1 and fresh off a statement upset over Georgia that reminded everyone that it is still a heavyweight, even if it looks a little different these days.

It’s the kind of matchup that makes you pause before firing a bet. Is Vanderbilt for real, or is it about to get a reality check? Is Alabama back, or still trying to figure out who it is?

Let’s break it all down: who these teams really are, how the matchup could play out, and where the smartest betting angle might actually be hiding.

All odds by ESPN BET

No. 16 Vanderbilt Commodores at No. 10 Alabama Crimson Tide
Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET, ABC

Line: Alabama -10.5
Money line: Alabama (-450), Vanderbilt (+340)
Over/Under: 56.5 (O Even, U -120)

Betting trends

Courtesy of ESPN Research

• Vanderbilt is 6-0 ATS as a road underdog since 2024.

• The Commodores have also covered in six straight road games against SEC opponents, one shy of tying their longest such streak over the last 40 years (seven straight from 2008-10).

• Vanderbilt is 7-3 ATS in its past 10 games as a double-digit underdog.

• Diego Pavia is 18-8 ATS in his career as an underdog (14-12 outright). He is 10-2 ATS and 7-5 outright as an underdog with Vanderbilt. He is 7-1 ATS and 4-4 outright at Vanderbilt when getting at least seven points, and he is 5-0 ATS and 3-2 outright when getting at least 10 points at Vanderbilt. Overall, Pavia has five outright wins as a double-digit underdog, tied with Clayton Thorson for the most in the last 20 seasons.

• This would be Vanderbilt’s narrowest spread in a road game against Alabama since being a 6.5-point underdog and upsetting Alabama in 1984. That was also the last time Vanderbilt beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

• Alabama is 7-6 ATS as a double-digit favorite under Kalen DeBoer (since 2024), but 6-2 when those games are at home.

• The Crimson Tide are 4-1 ATS against ranked opponents under DeBoer.

• Each of Alabama’s past six games against SEC opponents has gone under the total.

• Alabama is looking to cover the spread in six straight home games for the first time since a six-game streak from 2019 to ’20.

Why this is not your typical Vanderbilt team

For years, Vanderbilt has been the SEC’s gritty, disciplined underdog but rarely a real threat. That narrative might finally no longer apply.

At 5-0 for the first time since 2008, the Commodores could be proving they belong in the playoff conversation, and it’s not smoke and mirrors. This is a team built on a clear identity: balance, physicality, and relentless efficiency.

The offense has been the engine. Quarterback Diego Pavia is thriving in a system that blends power and tempo, completing over 70% of his passes while orchestrating one of the nation’s most balanced attacks.

Vanderbilt averages nearly 500 yards, fueled by a ground game that is first in the SEC in yards per carry. Not just gaining yards, Vanderbilt is finishing drives, leading the league in red zone touchdown rate.

Defensively, Vanderbilt has taken a leap, too. The Commodores are top 15 in pass rush grade complemented with a coverage unit that has been elite, while winning situational battles that used to cost them games.

Most importantly, Vanderbilt isn’t just beating the teams it is supposed to: It is dictating terms, controlling tempo and imposing its style of play. Dominance. This is a confident, complete football team capable of going toe-to-toe with anyone in the SEC. Vanderbilt, you have my respect. And it should have yours.

Does Alabama have an identity crisis or a new identity?

This Alabama team looks different under Kalen DeBoer.

Offensively, it has shifted from balanced and bruising to one-dimensional and pass heavy. Quarterback Ty Simpson is at the center of that shift. He has been steady and efficient, completing nearly 70% of his passes and guiding an offense that rarely turns the ball over. He’s not lighting up defenses with deep shots, and there’s still no true vertical identity, but he is doing enough to keep drives alive and convert once Alabama gets into scoring range. The passing game is clearly the strength here, and Simpson’s poise has been the steadying force behind it.

The running game, though, is a different story. It lacks consistency and physicality, with the third fewest rushing yards per game in the SEC, struggling to control tempo or close out games.

Defensively, the issues are harder to ignore. Alabama’s run defense is a real vulnerability, allowing 4.3 yards per carry and giving up 11 total explosive runs to Florida State and Georgia. The pass rush hasn’t been able to consistently collapse pockets, leaving the secondary under more pressure. The result is a defense that no longer dictates terms the way it once did.

The interesting wrinkle is how different the Tide look at home versus on the road. Away from Tuscaloosa, opponents are moving the ball and finishing drives, like FSU and Georgia. At home, Alabama has yet to allow a single red-zone trip and is slamming the door before offenses even reach the 20.

That makes them dangerous, but they’re no longer dominant. This version of Alabama wins differently, and that shift could decide how far they go.

Betting consideration: Alabama 1Q -3.5

Here’s how I got there. I can make a case for every full-game angle, which usually means the spread and total are efficient.

Alabama can cover the 10.5 because the home split is real under DeBoer. In Tuscaloosa it communicates, wins field position and has a brick wall outside the red zone. Its scripted offense is cleaner at home and the defense feeds off noise. That is the path to a comfortable margin.

Vanderbilt can cover, if not win, because its offense is balanced and efficient. It runs with success, throws it on schedule and finishes drives. If it stays ahead of the sticks, they can turn this into a four-quarter game. Alabama’s run defense has been a vulnerability dating back to last season, and if that shows up again, 10.5 is rich. But I’ve been making the point since preseason, that run-defense vulnerability tends to be more of a road-game factor.

The game can go over if Alabama’s passing game forces Vanderbilt to defend space for 60 minutes, as the Commodores have not seen this level of vertical threat and depth at receiver yet, so explosives plus red zone conversions can push this into the 60s.

The game can go under if Vanderbilt dictates pace with the ground game, shortens the game, and turns drives into eight- to 10-play marches. Fewer possessions, more clock bleed, tighter scoring bands.

That’s where Bama -3.5 in the first quarter comes in. The script and the venue are the most predictable edges on the board. Alabama has allowed zero first-quarter points at home this season and did the same thing last year on average: almost nothing at home, far more on the road. Plus, no red zone trips allowed at home this season, which is also in line with the seventh fewest touchdowns inside the 20 at home last year.

Offensively the Tide starts faster in Tuscaloosa — about two touchdowns per first quarter so far. Vanderbilt’s road starts have been slower — down 10-0 at Virginia Tech and only 7-7 at South Carolina.

That mix gives me a cleaner thesis. I do not need to solve 60 minutes. I need one or two Alabama stops, one efficient script drive and I cross -3.5. If Vanderbilt hits a haymaker early, I lose.

I can live with that.

Given the splits and the way both teams script, Alabama 1Q -3.5 is my favorite angle. It’s not a “lock,” but it’s one of those rare spots where the data, matchup context and historical tendencies all line up in the same direction. This wager is isolating the part of the game where Alabama has been most reliable and Vanderbilt has been most vulnerable.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The San Francisco 49ers began laying the path to quarterback Brock Purdy becoming the highest-paid player in franchise history roughly four years before it happened.

In the 2021 offseason, the Niners decided quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was not in their long-term plans — just three years after they made him the league’s highest paid player ($27.5 million per year).

General manager John Lynch told ESPN last week that he and coach Kyle Shanahan combed through three-year projections from executive vice president of football operations Paraag Marathe, assistant general manager Brian Hampton and their staffs, showing them that the quarterback market was about to explode.

The 49ers also had multiple star players heading toward position-defining contracts, which, combined with Garoppolo’s injury history and limitations made the choice academic, according to Lynch.

It was time to move on to someone younger and cheaper.

“We felt like if we got a quarterback on a rookie deal, we could put together a team that would be really hard to deal with,” Lynch said. “When you have that, it’s a lot easier to have a lot more stars across the rest of your roster. Not just stars, but high-end depth, which we’ve had for a long time.”

In today’s NFL, top-end quarterback contracts have become onerous enough that teams, like the 49ers, must begin planning years in advance for those cap-eating deals. It often requires a roster reset that includes sacrificing good players, a willingness to eat dead money to remove players who might not be producing equal to their deal and focusing on earning compensatory draft picks to have more shots at drafting talented, cost-controlled players to replace those who move on.

After Shanahan and Lynch decided to move on from Garoppolo, they drafted Trey Lance. The hope was Lance would develop into one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the league.

While it didn’t quite pan out that way, the 49ers’ financial reckoning at quarterback still arrived this offseason in the form of Purdy, who signed a five-year, $265 million deal in April that includes $181 million in guarantees.

What resulted was one of the most dramatic roster resets in NFL history. The Niners said goodbye to nearly 20 players, 15 of whom landed deals elsewhere worth up to a maximum of $341.5 million.

To replace those departed contributors, the 49ers focused on the 2025 NFL draft and rebuilding their defense. It was a roster reimagining following a similar blueprint of the 2023 Los Angeles Rams and 2024 Buffalo Bills, both teams that Lynch says his staff spent time studying before the offseason began.

Those Rams traded cornerback Jalen Ramsey and receiver Allen Robinson, let linebacker Bobby Wagner, defensive end Leonard Floyd, nose tackle Greg Gaines and other starters go and then used 14 draft picks to replenish the defense. After a 3-6 start, those young Rams emerged in the second half, going 7-1 on the way to making the playoffs.

The 2025 Niners (3-1) expect to endure similar bumps after resetting on the fly but remain competitive enough to contend for playoff spots while their young players develop. They’ll put that to the test Thursday (8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video) against the Rams (3-1) at SoFi Stadium.

“When you find somebody that is a top-10 quarterback who can help you continually win football games, then you have to make that decision,” 49ers owner Jed York said earlier this year. “And if you do that, it just comes with consequences, and you have to figure it out.”

Avoiding the “QB abyss”

As one of the longest-tenured general managers in the NFL, Les Snead has worked through nearly every kind of quarterback scenario for the Rams since 2012. He traded two quarterbacks taken No. 1 (Sam Bradford and Jared Goff), traded up to No. 1 to select one (Goff) and dealt for a proven veteran star in Matthew Stafford.

Snead knows what it’s like to have the franchise quarterback, what it’s like to be without one and how either scenario shapes the roster.

And though Snead has also overseen a roster reset that has yielded mostly good results, he wants it to be known that having a long-term plan at quarterback is better than the alternative.

“It is so awesome to be able to go to sleep, wake up and know that your QB, whether rookie contract or veteran, has proven he can help you win,” Snead said. “Anytime you go into the QB abyss, you jump in the deep end of the pool, and you can’t see the shore. You’re just swimming and hoping.”

For the Niners, the signs that Purdy would be the guy who helps Lynch and Shanahan sleep better revealed themselves early. Shanahan pointed to Purdy’s second NFL start, a December 2022 game in Seattle in which Purdy played through a rib injury on short rest to help clinch the NFC West, as the night he knew Purdy had what it takes to succeed.

Purdy further proved that in 2023 when he overcame a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right (throwing) elbow to lead the Niners to the Super Bowl, earn his first Pro Bowl nod and finish fourth in league MVP voting as he threw for a franchise-record 4,280 yards.

According to York, the decision to sign Purdy long-term was solidified about halfway through this past season with Lynch circling back to Shanahan once the 6-11 season concluded to ensure that was still the plan.

“You don’t burden your head coach until the season’s over and you say, ‘Hey, now comes the real big decision. Are we going for this? Is Brock our guy?'” Lynch said. “And understanding that with that, we’re not going to be able to keep the rest of our guys. That’s just the reality in our league.”

The three-year window

The Niners began financially preparing to pay their franchise quarterback as far back as 2022, according to Lynch. Since Shanahan and Lynch arrived in 2017, they’ve worked closely with Marathe and Hampton to plan for the future in three-year windows.

Marathe, Hampton and their staffs regularly work on future projections, including the anticipated rise of the salary cap and what the cost of top players at each position might be. It helps the 49ers budget for forthcoming contracts and determine how that player might fit.

Built into those conversations is the idea that there’s a difference between what Shanahan calls the “A” players and those who might not quite reach that level. Performance, injury, other players already on the roster or some combination of the three factor into those discussions.

Some choices are easy and it played out in real time this offseason when the Niners re-signed tight end George Kittle and linebacker Fred Warner, perhaps the two defining players of this era of 49ers football.

“We go to lengths to define who we are as a team, who we want to be, and those guys check every box in terms of our mission statement on who we want to be as the Niners” Lynch said. “Where do you draw the line? That’s where it gets a little tougher.”

The result of those projections came during March’s mass exodus when the Niners said goodbye to players such as receiver Deebo Samuel, guard Aaron Banks, running back Jordan Mason, linebacker Dre Greenlaw, cornerback Charvarius Ward and safety Talanoa Hufanga, all of whom had played at or near a Pro Bowl level at some point with the Niners. They also released established veteran defensive tackles Javon Hargrave and Maliek Collins and end Leonard Floyd.

All of them signed the type of middle or upper middle class deals that no longer fit the Niners modus operandi, a tacit admission that they still have good football left in them.

“We broke the NFL record for the most money in the NFL leaving our building and signing with other teams,” Shanahan said. “It shows you how good the players who left our building [were]. They weren’t just old guys that it was time to move on from. They were dudes who could really help other teams win. When you do that, that’s not the most fun thing for a coach.”

Cleaning up the cap

After the 49ers’ loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII, Lynch, Shanahan and the team’s other top executives sat down to plan for 2024, but the conversations that happened after that defeat took on a decidedly different tone than after previous deep postseason runs.

According to Lynch and Shanahan, the Niners considered getting ahead of the forthcoming roster shake-up immediately after the Super Bowl defeat. “There were a lot of internal conversations,” Lynch said. “But we felt like our team was so primed and ready and you have to take a hard look at things.”

The Niners opted for one last stand with their core group but with an eye toward the future. It didn’t work. Their season fell apart quickly and, even as 2024 unfolded, Lynch and Shanahan knew exactly how painful the 2025 offseason was going to be.

“But even then, you can’t prep for it until you’ve been through it,” Lynch said. “There were times that you’d go home in a foul mood because of it, but you knew that it was something we had to do.”

That pain would come not just from losing key players but in eating the dead salary cap space that many of them still carried. Releasing or trading players with remaining guarantees or a prorated signing bonus on their deals results in all that money accelerating to the cap immediately.

Much like the 2023 Rams, the Niners had to be willing to absorb that dead money and once they got started, they decided to eat as much of it as possible in one fell swoop to clean up the cap for 2026 and beyond.

As of this week, the 49ers have a league-leading $99.2 million in dead money and still rank third in cash spending ($328.1 million) because of the deals for Purdy, Kittle and Warner. The dead cap is even more than the Rams ate in 2023 when they dropped to last in the NFL in cash spending ($185.9 million) while eating nearly $80 million in dead money.

That offseason, Rams president Kevin Demoff sent a letter to season-ticket holders asking for patience as they cleaned up their books for what Snead referred to as a “remodel” rather than a rebuild.

One method for offsetting all of their losses in personnel and cap space? Compensatory draft picks. That isn’t complicated but it does require patience and makes for plenty of handwringing when free agency starts and players leave without replacements coming in.

It’s no coincidence that the Rams and Niners both rank among the top six all time in compensatory selections and nobody has garnered more than the Niners’ 14 comp picks over the past three years. Over the Cap projects San Francisco to get the maximum four more comp picks through the formula in 2026, too.

As Snead is quick to point out, even when the Rams were making big trades for star players such as Ramsey and Von Miller, they were still making plenty of selections to restock the roster.

“Even in that whole ‘F them picks era,’ we probably had the third most draft picks of anyone,” Snead said. “People said we were top heavy but when you’re top heavy, you’ve really got to rely on those right players on their rookie contract to play key roles.”

“Is it worth doing all this?”

Like Snead and the Rams, Shanahan and Lynch avoid using the word rebuild. There are too many star players on the roster with what Lynch calls “pelts on the wall” to blow it up and concede.

It’s why Shanahan gathered veterans such as Kittle, running back Christian McCaffrey, left tackle Trent Williams, Warner, defensive end Nick Bosa and fullback Kyle Juszczyk at his house for an offseason dinner. He wanted not only to share the plan, but for them to take ownership in helping that wave of youth learn.

“The cool thing about this is we still have a bunch of those other players that we didn’t have when we started this,” Shanahan said. “But we do have to develop these guys and make them turn into the types of guys who just went other places.”

In one more way, the Niners followed the Rams blueprint: most of their offseason was centered on rebuilding the defense, especially upfront, while maintaining continuity on offense.

In 2023, the Rams spent two of their first three picks on pass rushers Byron Young and Kobie Turner. They followed in 2024 by using their first two picks on linemen Jared Verse and Braden Fiske. Snead says that was by design because the Rams value the defensive line.

Like the Rams, the Niners also put a premium on the defensive line with Lynch often citing advice that former Colts, Browns and Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi once gave to John Elway about focusing on getting a quarterback and guys who knock the quarterback down.

That, combined with the rising costs of defensive linemen, left the Niners to spend three of their first five picks on end Mykel Williams and tackles Alfred Collins and CJ West. All of their first five selections were defenders.

When the 49ers opened the season on Sept. 7, they had eight new starters from 2024’s opening night. Coordinator Robert Saleh, whom Kittle calls the team’s biggest offseason addition, wasn’t sure what to expect in the opening weeks from his revamped defense.

Through four weeks, the 49ers’ offseason roster reset has yielded a 3-1 record, albeit with plenty of visible warts. In many ways, that, too, was something the Niners saw coming.

For this season to be a success, much will depend on whether the remaining stars can be healthy and produce until/if those young players ascend. Much of that also falls into the lap of the quarterback the Niners planned to pay long before they even had him on the roster: Purdy.

“You’ve got to ask yourself, is this quarterback worth doing all this?” Lynch said. “And in our case, it’s not a burden because you have your franchise quarterback and we all know how important that is to your team.”