Christian McCaffrey? Ricky Pearsall? Fred Warner? Brock Purdy? Who?
The San Francisco 49ers have consistently acquired a good deal of likable players. We don’t need to bring up all the swooning around here when Jimmy Garoppolo was a quarterback. So we all have players we want to root for. Maybe the story behind them, proving fans of other teams wrong, or whatever your reason is.
NFL.com’s Tom Blair put together a list where he named one player from each team in the NFL to root for. Like the 49ers, there are teams where it’s hard to find just one guy to root for on a roster of 53 players.
The 49ers don’t have the character issues we’ve seen when Trent Baalke was running things, so once again, they are one of those teams where singling someone out is difficult. Blair picked Christian McCaffrey as his 49ers player to root for
I know McCaffrey doesn’t really need a boost in the fan department. This is more about a certain level of greediness I’m feeling about one of the most prolific offensive talents of our time. McCaffrey has topped 1,800 scrimmage yards in four separate seasons, a total surpassed by just four other players in NFL history (Hall of Famers Walter Payton, LaDainian Tomlinson, Marshall Faulk and Emmitt Smith). He did it as recently as 2023, when he hit the 2k mark for the second time — then lost most of last season to injuries, finishing with less than 100 touches for the first time in his career. Maybe 2024 was just a natural step-down from such a high workload, and he’ll easily bounce back again, just as he did following a similar blip in production following his first 2,000-scrimmage-yard effort, in 2019 with the Panthers. Then again, he’s 29 now, with that much more mileage on his legs. Knowing how time and age generally work, it would be great to get to watch at least one more mega-wattage McCaffrey campaign.
I can’t argue with McCaffrey as the guy to root for. Getting sidelined for the length of time he was in 2024 had to be horrible. Plus, his attitude off the field deserves a medal. The 49ers haven’t had to worry a second about him or any antics he could get into.
That said, my pick for player to root for isn’t McCaffrey, it’s wide receiver Ricky Pearsall. Around this time last year, Pearsall was showing some good things when training camp started. At the end of August, he suffered a gunshot wound to the chest during a failed robbery attempt. The incident derailed his rookie season and could have ruined his career. Instead, Pearsall came back and turned a lot of heads with the limited time he had.
There are a lot of things we can say come with the territory of being a professional athlete, getting shot in the chest is a gig nobody should be in line for. Especially if it’s in your inaugural season as a rookie, there’s enough you have to worry about coming into a professional sports league—gunshots shouldn’t be added to that list.
The fact that Pearsall returned and played at a high level should be enough for any naysayers against his drafting to change their tune. But he deserves a whole season to show what he can be. He has the opportunity. With Deebo Samuel shipped off to the Washington Commanders and Brandon Aiyuk’s return still up in the air, Pearsall can show he’s the future. Both his play and resistance helped him earn that opportunity. Well, to me, anyway.
What is the one player you are rooting for on the 49ers?