The NFL’s trade deadline came and went without anymore deals for the San Francisco 49ers in a sign that they believe their current Super Bowl window is closed.
San Francisco spent its offseason positioning its roster and finances for the future, and their lack of activity at the deadline confirmed their commitment to a opening a Super Bowl window in the near future.
It wasn’t a totally inactive deadline for the 49ers. They acquired defensive end Keion White from the New England Patriots in a late-round pick swap. There just weren’t any additional moves as they maintain their stock of draft capital in both the 2026 and 2027 drafts.
While there may be some frustration from fans who wanted to see the team try to capitalize on its 6-3 start, the fact of the matter is their injuries to stars like Nick Bosa and Fred Warner dramatically lowered their ceiling in 2025. Then there’s the fact Brock Purdy’s toe injury may never be 100 percent healthy this year. Stack injuries to key depth pieces and starters like Mykel Williams and Ricky Pearsall and it’s a formula for a team to try and just survive the season.
Draft picks are going to be vital to the 49ers’ future team build, so dealing a Day 1 or 2 pick probably went off the table when Bosa and Warner got hurt. By removing those assets we can take needle-moving names off the table with them. If the 49ers were going to make a trade to help their pass rush it was more than likely going to be a depth piece in the vein of Jordan Willis in 2020 or a Charles Omenihu trade in 2021.
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Instead of shelling out draft capital for a veteran castoff to help their banged up defensive front, the 49ers opted to lean on players in-house to try and carry them to the postseason. They added White and they expect to get defensive end Bryce Huff back for Week 10. Veteran Clelin Ferrell is also available on the practice squad and will likely be promoted to the active roster at some point. Ferrell is the type of player they’d have targeted in a trade. Instead of dealing an asset for that level of player, they can just add him from their practice squad to fill out their patchwork defensive line.
Any other position was one the 49ers were always going to lean on internal talent to fix because they need internal development to give themselves a chance to be Super Bowl contenders in 2026 and beyond.
The 49ers entered this season hoping their young players may develop at a fast enough rate that they’d be Super Bowl contenders come January. Injuries have derailed that plan multiple times over. They’re not punting 2025 and they still have the horses to make a run to the postseason. Their ceiling once they’re there is lower than they might’ve hoped, but they’ll exit the year set up to get healthy over the offseason, and armed with draft capital and salary cap flexibility.
It isn’t ideal for the rest of the 2025 season, but this year was always about the future and the 49ers held firm to that by standing pat at Tuesday’s trade deadline.
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