Some people are fans of the San Francisco 49ers. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the San Francisco 49ers. This 2015 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.


Your team: San Francisco 49ers, 1946-2015, RIP.

Your 2014 record: 8-8. The Niners close out their formal existence as a professional football team with five Super Bowl titles, six NFC titles, and 19 division titles. That’s a really nice run you guys had.


Caretaker for your team’s grave: Living Woody Guthrie song Jim Tomsula, who has lived out of car (and frankly, probably enjoyed life more that way) and lost his great-grandfather in a coal pulverizer accident. Tomsula will be in charge of cleaning the Niners’ headstone, replacing any and all dead flowers, and chasing off vandalizing teens from the team’s deluxe cemetery in Santa Clara. Given his background AND his hilarious inability to speak in public, Tomsula will make for a fantastic undertaker. In time, he will grow a proper hunchback. He’s certainly not qualified to be the head coach of a professional football team, but that’s no longer an issue for the York family. So long as Tomsula turns off the sprinklers and is happy to be paid in canned beans, the job is his eternally.

Jim Tomsula's Life Has Been Extraordinarily Depressing You know Jim Tomsula. You just do. He’s the guy with life lessons to impart to you from his time as Read more

Tomsula, as you know, replaces actual football coach Jim Harbaugh, who took a disgraced franchise and immediately shaped it into a perennial winner. He was then forced out by owner Jed York and GM Trent Baaaaaaaalke for being, like, too mean or something. Smart move.

Your would-be quarterback: Hashtag savant Colin Kaepernick, who, due to blunt trauma shock, is not aware that the “team” he plays for no longer exists and that he has been remanded to Shutter Island for observation. If you explain to Kaepernick that the 49ers were actually destroyed in an office-politics holocaust, he will cover his ears and scream out the lyrics to “Wheels on the Bus” to mask the truth. Kaep will go down in history as a promising quarterback who somehow ended up justifying that one horrible Instagram comparison between him and Russell Wilson. HE TOLD YOU #7TORMS WERE C0MING6!

What’s new that sucks: (Jim McKay voice) They’re gone. They’re all gone. As you are aware, the San Francisco 49ers were murdered by Jed York this offseason… their assets liquidated, moved to a shipping container south of town and formally placed in the trust of an umbrella holding company called Alphaturd.


Two years ago, the Niners had the best linebacking corps of the decade. Two of those linebackers are gone. One of the remaining two is still recovering from a horrific knee injury. A promising young replacement LB retired due to fire migraines. Stalwart DT Justin Smith? Also gone. Harbaugh? Gone. Michael Crabtree? Gone. Frank Gore? Gone. Half the o-line? Gone. Andy Lee? Gone. Ray McDonald? Uh… well, he had some issues. Everyone retired or got arrested. The only thing left of this team is the shadow it cast on the wall just before the nuclear bomb went off.

Left to help clean up the incinerated bits of respectability here are newcomers like Darnell Dockett, Torrey Smith, and Reggie Bush. They’re here basically to be your tour guides through the museum of wreckage. Watch them put on Niners uniforms and try to recreate Niners games of old! You can say there are “new” players here, but that’s just the denial stage of grief lingering. Nothing new can come from death. Nothing returns. Nothing emerges.


What has always sucked: In some ways, the death of the Niners coincides with the death of the city they supposedly represent. San Francisco, as it stands now, is no longer a living American Metropolis. Instead, the entire city has been converted into a giant Airbnb rental for tourists and rich foreigners. No one actually LIVES in San Francisco. Don’t be silly. Living on a space station is more feasible for the average American. You wouldn’t actually want to live there anyway. The only people walking around town now are selfish, tech-speak mandroids, each one with the explicit life goal of ascending Amazon’s hallowed Ladder of Triumph.

Not that Jed York gives a shit about any of this. I’m not exaggerating when I say I think the Niners implosion is one of the great crimes in sports history. York brought in Harbaugh, kept him around just as a new stadium was going through, and then let him go when keeping up that facade was no longer necessary. The Niners have let everything go to shit simply because they can. They give no fucks. York will show up at games this year in a bathrobe and slippers and piss down your leg. What difference does it make? The Niners are the full and glorious realization of the NFL’s most bloodless ambitions. They force fans to pay the most money possible to go to the least convenient stadium possible, all in service of a team that is now so wealthy, it can afford to suck in perpetuity. They don’t even feel obligated to take care of the field anymore. Look at this fucking sandlot:


The Niners have crossed the Rubicon… they have optimized the model for fucking everyone over and now they can sit back and watch the rest of the world burn.

What might not suck: Have I not already been clear about this team’s prospects? Hope is for suckers. Hope is how they lured you to the Jeanhole to watch a game to begin with.


Hear it from Niners fans!

Morgan:

I mean holy shit did you see the offseason we had? It would’ve gone better if the entire team had just gotten the bubonic plague.


Chase:

Holy shit. I don’t even know where to start.

Bryan:

Does anybody even fucking know what’s going on in this organization?

Chris:

Jesus Fucking Christ. Hey, let’s fire the best coach the franchise has seen since Bill Walsh and hire a guy that changed the oil on my Nissan Versa last week.


Troy:

Everyone can feel these are the bad old days again. Alex Smith days are coming.

Fernando:

Hoooooooooooooooooooooooly shit. I love the Niners and everything, but Jed York can go suck a fat dick. The only reason that entitled prick isn’t getting blasted for being a terrible owner is because they aren’t called the San Francisco Borderjumpers or something equally stupid and racist. Jim Harbaugh single handedly changed the culture and success of this franchise after a decade of worthlessness, and then little Jed gets all uppity and is like “How come I’m not getting all the credit? I sign the checks and spend Daddy’s money” and whatnot. So he shitcanned Harbaugh and now we have a guy who likes like a Jersey Longshoreman coaching the team. I’m sure Tomsula’s a nice guy and great motivator and whatever but I doubt he knows which way is up. There’s a reason the players were all in with Harbaugh, and now half the team retired in the last month because they were worried about CTE. They know it’s not worth it to rot their brains for a losing cause. Fuck Jed York.


Alex:

Fuck Jed York with a roll of asbestos.

Kyle:

The Yorks were so concerned with wi-fi access and One Direction concerts when building Levi’s they failed to realize that half the stadium acts as a giant magnifying glass for the sun. Oh and where did they build the Niners locker room and presumptive sideline? That’s right, in the position of the ants on the sidewalk. I wouldn’t trust Jim Tomsula with a hoagie, let alone a football team.

Joe:

My first name is Joe and my middle name is Dwight, I am named after Joe Montana and Dwight Clark, I was born a month after the Super Bowl in 1982. For many years of my life this was a sense of pride and although they are still great players to be named after, I rarely tell people this anymore because being associated with this mess of a franchise is an embarrassment.


Dan:

The broadcast announcers ALWAYS mention that Kaep threw a 97MPH fastball in college. Without fail he will then throw a 97MPH missile to a receiver four yards away, one who clearly isn’t done with his route, which bounces off the dude’s chest into Richard Sherman’s awaiting arms. At this point, I am more curious as to Kaep’s lifetime free throw percentage.


Chase:

I honestly don’t know which one of my favorite teams will be worse next year, the 49ers or the Sacramento Kings. Jesus Christ that’s a depressing statement.


Mana:

Our QB has bible verses tattooed over every inch of his body and frequently kisses his own arm.


Shane:

The 49ers are a mangled corpse with Frank Grimes leading the charge.

Richard:

Tomsula looks like the love child of Mario and Ron Jeremy. He looks like every press conference should start with, “Imma a-gonna win!” And it would still be better than what he actually does say.


Andrew:


Stewart:



Fuck Jed York with a stick of dynamite.

Noah:

Fuck Kyle Williams.

Patrick:

We paid thousands of dollars for seat licenses + season tickets. Prior to the third game at Levi’s, a drunk lady seated a few rows behind us puked all over the seats and ground. It is 90 + degrees and we request a clean up. It takes the staff 3 full quarters to respond and clean up the puke. We were each given $20 vouchers for food within the stadium after a multi-week argument with stadium operations.


Ryan:

There is a 99% chance our new coach uses the red challenge flag to wipe his sweaty ass brow on national TV in that Monday night opener against your Vikings. I say only 99% chance because there is a 1% chance he goes the whole game without realizing he has the challenge flag. I may have those numbers mixed up.

Brandon:

Because Vernon Davis was shown teaching that kid who has Leukemia how to catch a football in that SportsCenter My Wish segment, and he is the person probably least qualified to speak to someone about how to catch anything.


Bo:

The best linebacker of our team’s history retired at 30. His replacement retired after his rookie season. We drafted AJ Jenkins instead of Alshon Jeffery. Justin Smith is gone.


Erik:

I can’t figure out how we ended up with a new head coach with an IQ of 80, but here we are.


Seamus:

Fuck Levi’s Stadium and its many revenue streams.

Aaron:

San Francisco didn’t even want them anymore so the team built a billion dollar stadium 38.9 miles south of where they were. The city of Santa Clara has no downtown or anything worth seeing in the background of a stadium picture. Any city shots of games are always of San Francisco, 45 miles north. Good luck to anyone if you are coming here for the Super Bowl. All of my friends and I are going to be renting out our homes for thousands of dollars and skipping town to avoid that logistical nightmare.


Cuyler:

I don’t care if Jim Harbaugh is medically insane (he is), if you run the coach out of town who took your team from absolute embarrassing garbage-pail irrelevance to conference-dominating powerhouse in ZERO YEARS, you are not only stupid, you don’t care about winning.


Devin:

I feel like Ray Velcoro looking for clues in some creepy Hollywood sex dungeon. Nothing makes sense, everything is weird, and there is a camera in the corner that captured all the bad shit that went on. They pretend to get a hot young start up coordinator in Adam Gase, only to tell him that he can’t run his offense, and can’t hire his own staff because Trent Baalke runs that show. Gase decides to pass. So instead of doing any more work, they just promote everyone who is left to coordinator positions, hire a lap dog in Jim Tomsula to be yes man/Coach, and then pretend that was their plan all along. The new QB coach who will mentor Kaep? He was hosting a radio show last year.


Sean:

Fuck Jed York with a hot branding iron.

Chris:

The Oakland Raiders declined to hire our new DC.

Meaty:

Jed York looks like Drew Magary had sex with an uglier Drew Magary. Don’t listen to the bullshit that Patrick Willis, Chris Borland, Justin Smith, and Anthony Davis retired from injuries. They retired because they knew this team is going to swim at the bottom of the NFC West for the next decade.


Andrew:

Last year, before the Chargers Saturday game, my friend who had really nice seats proceeded to drink 3 bottles of this, and fell asleep on the tailgate of our truck. After the 49ers blew a 55-point lead (was it 20? I don’t even care anymore) and lost the game, I, being highly intoxicated, proceeded to bring up Super Bowl 29 at the highest volume my voice would allow. Because that’s what we as 49ers fans do. We live in the past.


Andrew:

Within three years owner Jed York went from a heralded wunderkind to now being mentioned in the same breath as Mark Davis, James Dolan, Jimmy Buss, and Dan Snyder.


Richard:

Despite having billions of dollars, a massive PR arm and bankrolling several city council members, the Forty Niners recently lost their bid to pave over some youth soccer fields adjacent to Levi’s. What could possibly have been their undoing? A 60 second video of a bunch of kids singing a terrible parody of the “Beverly Hillbillies” theme song about Jed York. Jed York is so hated he was defeated by the portion of a school’s talent show you’d intentionally miss.


George:

The last thing I want to see is Tomsula be mediocre enough to last 2-3 seasons.

Richard:

This is everything wrong about Vernon Davis. This is a full grown, multi-millionaire who’s making a Youtube video who thinks acting like a dick to a waiter at Applebee’s counts as a “prank”.

Kyle:

Here’s a fun fact: the Niners had ONE projected starter of their offensive line start all 16 games last year. The entire starting unit played something like one quarter together all last season. Now there’s a good chance that all these injuries had something to do with Kaepernick’s 52 sacks and career-low QBR last season, right? A logical move might be to try to keep the band together, maybe shore it up with a few better subs in case one guy goes down, etc? So what do the Niners do? They let Iupati walk, lose Anthony Davis to retirement at the ripe old age of 25, and sign a deep threat in Torrey Smith to tempt Kaepernick to sit back and try to unleash the ball despite the fact that he’s sitting behind an O-line probably even worse than last year. Should be fun trying to see if he can break 60 sacks this year.


Jordan:

THERE’S A FUCKING LEVI STADIUM APP: Watch the game from your phone far from your actual seats because you’re a sensible human being and refuse to be burned alive while you watch your starting QB rifle a pass into double coverage.


Horace:

Maybe if Anonymous hacks the stadium we can get free beer.

Kyle:

Jed York is a literal penis. A flaccid, walking, talking penis. Levis Stadium has the personality of a piece of wheat bread soaked in water. Fuck that place. The highlight of my offseason has been watching Russell Wilson be exposed as the human saltine cracker that he is.


Marcus:

I’ve read that Washington fans feel like the team will never be good as long as they’re alive, since Dan Snyder is only 50 and he’s never going to sell. Jed York is only 35.

Michael:

Fuck Jed York with a broken milk bottle.

Submissions for the 2015 NFL previews are now closed. Next up: The Buffalo Bills.