All the talk is about Jimmy Garoppolo, but what about all of the stuff that’s actually happened?
49ers beat writer Matt Maiocco hopped on with Murph & Mac on Thursday and was posed the question: Is San Francisco better or worse than when the offseason started? Maiocco said it’s hard to argue the 49ers have improved.
“Well I would say on paper you’d have to say they’ve gotten worse because they lost two starting caliber players,” Maiocco said on KNBR. “They lost Laken Tomlinson and they lost DJ Jones. So if you are to look at this objectively, because we don’t know anything about Javon Kinlaw — how he’s going to come back — or Aaron Banks, so objectively you have to say they’ve gotten worse.
“That’s where drafting comes in and planning comes in. They seem to be very optimistic about Aaron Banks and Javon Kinlaw. With Javon Kinlaw, he’s healthy, no swelling in the knee for the first time since they’ve had him, and Kyle Shanahan said Aaron Banks was ready to start last year and then the team started winning and they didn’t want to mess with success.
“They believe they’ve gotten better because they added the big piece. The one hole that they felt like they had to address was Charvarius Ward, bringing in a starting cornerback.”
Via Maiocco, here’s what the 49ers additions and subtractions look like so far this offseason
Additions: CB Charvarius Ward (KC) WR Ray-Ray McCloud (PIT) DB George Odum (IND) LB Oren Burks (GB) DT Hassan Ridgeway (PHI) DE Kerry Hyder Jr. (SEA)
Subtractions: G Laken Tomlinson (NYJ) DT D.J. Jones (DEN) CB K’Waun Williams (DEN) RB Raheem Mostert (MIA) RB Trenton Cannon (TEN) WR Trent Sherfield (MIA) OL Tom Compton (DEN) DL Kentavius Street (NO) WR Richie James (NYG)
That said, Maiocco said that the 49ers’ standing in the NFC may be the same, or even better, due to the fact that all the other teams have gotten worse.
“When you look at the NFC, and players that NFC teams have lost compared to teams that have gained players in free agency, by and large the NFC teams have lost a lot more than they’ve gained, and the opposite is true of the AFC.
“I would pose this question to you: Which legitimate contending team in the NFC on paper has gotten better this offseason? I can’t find one. You look at the AFC and you go which team hasn’t gotten better? They all have. It’s pretty interesting to see how the two conferences have approached the beginning of the offseason in completely different ways.”
It should however be noted that after Maiocco’s hit on Thursday, LB Bobby Wagner signed with the Los Angeles Rams on a five-year deal, according to Adam Schefter.
Listen to the full interview below. You can listen to every KNBR interview on our podcast page at knbr.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catch Murph & Mac weekdays from 6 – 10 a.m. on KNBR 104.5 / 680 and streaming live on KNBR.com.