Week 6 - The 2025 NFL season has been a rough one for teams around the league regarding injuries as some of the game's brightest players have fallen to the injury bug in the early going. But no team in all of football has had it worse than the (4-1) San Francisco 49ers in terms of both the amount of players they've lost to injury (27) and the star power of those losses as head coach Kyle Shanahan could virtually assemble a Pro Bowl team with the laundry list of injuries his team has already suffered only five games into the season. On Sunday while taking on the (4-1) Buccaneers in Tampa Bay, the 49ers who are already without former Defensive Player of the Year Nick Bosa, lost yet another one of their defensive captains and vocal leaders and suffered without a doubt their biggest blow possible when 4-time First-Team All-Pro and 4-time Pro Bowl linebacker Fred Warner needed to be carted off the field in the game's opening quarter after being rolled up on by a teammate making a tackle. Warner entered Sunday's game needing only five tackles to surpass Hall of Famer Patrick Willis for the 49ers' franchise record and tallied only one before suffering the injury at the 7:48 mark of the first quarter.
The magnitude of both the player and injury was quite evident as players from both teams gathered near midfield to take a knee and hold a prayer for Warner as he was attended to by medical personnel before being carted to the locker room with what was later diagnosed as a broken and dislocated ankle. It would also come as a shock given how durable Warner has been over the years having missed only 1 game out of 122 career contests. He will now miss the rest of the season with 11 games remaining. Unfortunately, even after the brutal injury, the show would have to go on as there were still more than three and a half quarters to be played. Touted as being a heavyweight matchup for the NFC's top-seed, Sunday's meeting between the 49ers and Bucs would mark the first time in NFL history that two teams would meet six weeks into the season with all of their games decided by 5-points or less. Ironically, the two teams who have only known one-score games this season would ultimately take part in a game that was decided by double-digits.
San Francisco's defense which hadn't allowed any first quarter points all season, got off to another promising start to begin the game as quarterback Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers were held to a punt on the game's opening-drive. After a pair of runs on first and second down on the 49ers' ensuing possession, QB Mac Jones had his first pass attempt of the afternoon intercepted on a play that saw the quarterback and receiver clearly on the wrong page. A week after a career-night for 49ers receiver Kendrick Bourne, the QB-receiver duo was out of sync which allowed the Bucs to setup shop at the San Francisco 12 where they would score two plays later with a 2-yard rushing touchdown by running back Rachaad White, ending the Niner defense's scoreless first quarter streak. Jones and Bourne would redeem themselves on San Francisco's next drive as the two connected on the very next play with a 41-yard pass that helped the 49ers get on the board with a 52-yard Eddy Pineiro field goal. After exchanging punts, Jones and Bourne were back at it to open the second quarter, this time connecting on a 56-yard reception. Still seeking their first rushing touchdown of the year, Christian McCaffrey finally broke through on third down with a 1-yard score to give San Francisco a 10-7 lead.
The 49ers' lead would be short-lived as the Bucs took advantage of Warner not being on the field and began to pick apart the 49er secondary, scoring touchdowns on three of their next four full possessions after the heart-wrenching injury took place. One of the league's leading MVP-candidates in the early going, Baker Mayfield led his team on back-to-back touchdown-scoring drives to end the first half as San Francisco was only able to answer with field goals, leading to a 20-16 halftime lead for Tampa Bay. The Niners nearly suffered another freak injury before halftime when kicker Eddy Pineiro had his foot stepped on by a teammate just after drilling the field goal that sent the team into the half. Despite trailing at the half, it would be only the second career game with 200 passing yards thru the first two quarters for 49ers QB Mac Jones. Sunday would also mark the first time in his career that he would log back-to-back 300 yard passing games as Jones threw for a season-high 347 when it was all said and done. Adding a fourth field goal by Pineiro to open the second half, Tampa Bay again did them one better by finding the end zone. One of the bigger plays that likely did the 49ers in was a pivotal 3rd and 14 that saw Mayfield avoid being sacked by two defenders before breaking another tackle and eventually lunging forward for the first down on a back-breaking 15-yard run. Instead of setting up a punt, the Bucs converted for a new set of downs and scored two plays later on a 45-yard bomb to Tez Johnson.
After a failed two-point conversion and a missed field goal on Tampa Bay's ensuing possession, the 49ers still had a chance trailing by 8-points with just under 9-minutes to go. But with a second Mac Jones interception on the day and a turnover on downs on San Francisco's final two possessions, the 49ers would fall 30 to 19, allowing their highest point total of the season. Unable to force any turnovers of their own on defense, the 49ers' drought of consecutive games without an interception has now reached 13 games, the longest such streak in NFL history. In a game that was full of lots of negatives, the 49ers did have a few positives on Sunday including the first career sack of rookie first round pick Mykel Williams and the return of second-year safety Malik Mustapha who made his season debut after recovering from an ACL injury suffered at the end of last season. Entering the game with a career record of 0-4 against the 49ers, Baker Mayfield finally got off the schneid with the win on Sunday, improving his MVP campaign by throwing for 256 yards and 2 touchdowns in the win and sacked only once, despite losing his top target Emeka Egbuka to a hamstring injury in the first half. Elsewhere, the 49ers' offensive-line which has been problematic this season, would let quarterback Mac Jones down on Sunday as he was sacked six times on the afternoon, tying a career-high.
49ers receiver Kendrick Bourne had another stellar day at the office Sunday, tallying a career-high 142 receiving yards for the second consecutive week, giving him back-to-back games of 100+ yards after only one such game in his previous 114 career games. Meanwhile, Bourne's teammate and fellow receiver Jauan Jennings had another rough day at the office after missing action in Week 5 due to an injury, catching only one pass for 7 yards. Jennings was called for several penalties on Sunday and even got into a shouting match on the sideline with coach Shanahan. Jennings revealed in the locker room after the game that he played through five broken ribs which would explain his poor performance. But the biggest elephant in the room after the game were the worries that surrounded Fred Warner. Team reporters described the somber 49ers locker room after the game as the most depressing they've ever felt it outside of the Super Bowl loss in overtime two seasons ago. And understandably so, the loss of Warner is sure to change the way John Lynch will approach the NFL trade deadline as they will likely need too much to now fill the voids of both Nick Bosa and Fred Warner. The truth is there is no replacing the type of player or leader that Fred Warner is and there isn't a Fred Warner-type player out there on the market. Baker Mayfield also opened up his postgame presser by sending thoughts and prayers to Warner.
Week 7 Preview: The (4-2) 49ers will return home to Levi's Stadium in Week 7 where they will play host to the (3-2) Atlanta Falcons for a Sunday Night showdown. With head coach Kyle Shanahan having to now plan for life without the league's best linebacker with Fred Warner out, some good news should be on the horizon as the team is expected to get both George Kittle (hamstring) and Ricky Pearsall (knee) back in the lineup this week on offense. Quarterback Brock Purdy could also be eying a return soon as he recovers from a toe injury that has kept him out of all but two games this season. The 49ers will have their hands full come Sunday with Falcons running back Bijan Robinson who trained with fellow running back Christian McCaffrey in the offseason. Robinson is coming off a spectacular game in which he logged 238 scrimmage yards, the most ever in a single game in Falcons franchise history after 170 rushing yards and another 68 yards receiving. Atlanta is equally as daunting on the defensive side of things as their defense has allowed the fewest total yards per game and passing yards per game in the NFL this season.
With coach Shanahan yet to announce a starter at quarterback, regardless of who is under-center on Sunday, the 49er offensive-line will have to do a much better job of keeping their QB on their feet as Mac Jones was sacked too many times last week and will face another tough bunch to face this week coming off a four-sack night against Buffalo's Josh Allen. The Falcons are riding high with a two-game win streak after pulling off the Monday Night upset over the Bills on Monday night, 24-14.
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