Good Move or Bad Move?

Revisiting 49ers’ 2016 personnel decisions

- Craig Massei

How did the 49ers end up like this?

That’s a question that’s sure to circle through the minds of the team and its fans on almost a daily basis as the Niners play to the finish of this tortured season that’s destined to go down in team annals as one of the worst in franchise history.

It’s also a question that figures to linger on into the 2017 offseason as the 49ers look to regroup and rebuild again — and wonder how it all went wrong during the regrouping and rebuilding of the 2016 offseason.

If the 49ers thought they had a bad offseason in 2015 — considered one of the worst in the team’s contemporary history — then 2016 has to also be considered as a contender for the top after the way San Francisco performed this year on the way to finishing with one of the franchise’s worst records.

San Francisco’s slide from a team that was bad last season to a group that was even worse this season leads to some serious examination of what the team did this year to strengthen itself during the rosterforming months of late-winter and spring — and in this case, all the way up to the middle of summer training camp, too.

Here, The Niner Report revisits the significant moves of San Francisco’s offseason and examines how they’ve panned out for the 49ers as the team completes the final stage of its season.

CHIP-PING AWAY IN A NEW COACHING DIRECTION

After last year’s 5-11 debacle — when the 49ers weren’t even as good as that lousy final record might suggest while finishing the season ranked last in the NFL in scoring, next-to-last in total offense and 29th in total defense — the team was quick to oust the captain of that sinking ship, Tim Tomsula.