“The Athletic Football Show” is previewing all 32 teams leading up to the start of the 2026 NFL season. Below are select quotes from the show’s preview of the San Francisco 49ers. The quotes are edited for clarity. You can watch the whole preview on YouTube and in the embedded video below, or listen to the full NFC West preview wherever you get your podcasts.Dave Helman on what about the 49ers most excites him: Kyle Shanahan drawing up ball plays for a healthy Brock Purdy and, I hope, a healthier skill group. And I say Purdy first because I think it’s easy to forget after a nine-month offseason that he missed half of the year last year. On top of that, the 49ers were leaning on Kendrick Bourne, Demarcus Robinson and Jake Tonges to play meaningful roles in their top-10 offense and top-10 offense.George Kittle’s already on the 53, that’s incredibly encouraging. Christian McCaffrey, I haven’t heard anything overly alarming in the last 10 days. Mike Evans, I don’t know if that existential dread is ever going to go away given his age and injury history, but this could be a really fun offense because it always is. And I’m just banking on them having better luck than they have the last two years.Derrik Klassen on what he’s watching the first month of the season: Can this team generate pressure or not? And I think that we will find out pretty soon. Obviously, last year they were not playing with Nick Bosa for a lot of the season. not playing with Fred Warner, which I think weirdly is going to hurt some of your pressures if quarterbacks just think that they can get the ball out over the middle of the field a little bit easier. Last year, when they were rushing four, this team was 30th in pressure rate and 31st in sack rate. And so I think you bring in a guy like Osa Odighizuwa, who has a lot of pop to him. Bosa, you hope, comes back, and I think asking for Pro Bowl stuff from him right away is probably a lot, but if he can just be better than all the guys they had last year, that goes a long way. Maybe Romello Height can give you a little bit of something, and there’s reason to believe this pass rush can get off the ground. I’m just excited to see if that means are they going back to average or is this back to a unit that you are a little bit scared of when you get into third downs.Robert Mays on what’s keeping him up at night: This thing feels rickety as hell. Bosa’s still not practicing, tendinitis in the same knee where he tore his ACL last year. Christian McCaffrey missing a huge chunk of training camp coming off a 400-touch season. There have been 15 seasons where a running back has touched the ball at least 375 times since 2010. About half of those seasons involved dramatic falloffs in production for those players the next year. Derrick Henry in 2021, McCaffrey himself in 2020, DeMarco Murray in 2015, Josh Jacobs in 2023. Saquon Barkley last year still ran for 1,000 yards. You think Saquon looked right last year? So we have a 30-year-old back who touched the ball 400 times last year that already has been banged up for stretches of his career. Mike Evans missed nine games last year, three the year before that. Some different part of his body is wrapped after every single practice. We’ve had an ankle, we’ve had a quad, it’s all over the place. Mykel Williams is on the PUP list. Renardo Green was hurt in the final preseason game. I’m worried about this.Subscribe to “The Athletic Football Show” on YouTube.