Kurtenbach: To answer their 31-year question, the 49ers need to narrow their focus
SEATTLE — The lockers were cleaned out, the garbage bags were full, and the platitudes were flying like in lieu of the confetti that won’t be falling for the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium in February.
While the San Francisco 49ers came up short of the Super Bowl this season — a phrase that has been copied and pasted into this column space every winter for the last three decades — the mood inside the losing locker room in Seattle was defiantly optimistic.
The company line? The baptism by fire endured by the team’s young core in 2025 will result in an even better 2026.
When asked if he thinks his team can win the Super Bowl next year, quarterback Brock Purdy didn’t blink: “100 percent,” he said.
You have to admire the conviction. For the Niners, the only goal is to win a Super Bowl. It is the singular, binary condition for this franchise’s success. But the drought is now 31 years old. It has a mortgage, a thinning hair line, and increasingly fuzzy memories of Steve Young removing a metaphorical monkey from his back.
But building a Super Bowl champion — even in this modern NFL era of forced parity, where the league office seemingly wants every team to finish 8-8-1 — is anything but straightforward. The path to the Lombardi Trophy is a labyrinth of salary cap gymnastics (not an issue the last time the 49ers won it), injury luck, and, apparently, being on the right side of officiating decisions that require a degree in theoretical physics to understand.
So, let’s simplify the assignment ahead of the 49ers’ offseason:
Strip away the “Quest for Six” slogans and the wide-looking talking points.
Yes, the Niners have some serious heavy lifting to do. So, for the love of Walsh, don’t worry about the Super Bowl. Don’t worry about the NFC as a whole.
No, focus solely on winning the NFC West.
That sounds reductive, right? You might think that’s setting the bar too low.
But let’s look at the cold, hard reality of the 2025 season. Even if the 49ers had a chance to be the No. 1 seed in the NFC with a Week 18 win, the truth is they were a third-place team in their own division.
Read that again: third place.
And while that third-place finish will have its perks — namely, an easier schedule in 2026 that avoids the buzzsaws awaiting the division winners — it is also irrefutable proof that the Niners need to take care of business in their own neighborhood before they start dealing with the city, the state, or the nation.
The good news? In their effort to overtake the Rams and the Seahawks, the Niners will inadvertently take care of all the other NFC teams.
With no due respect to the three other divisions, the NFC West had the three best teams in the conference this year. The road to Inglewood next year (from Levi’s to Levi’s South? Nice one, NFL) doesn’t go through Philadelphia or Chicago. It goes through Seattle and, well, Inglewood.
First, the Rams. An easier argument can be made that the 49ers were neck-and-neck with them this year. The rivalry is fierce, the games are close, and the Rams’ window of contention is entirely tied to Matthew Stafford’s ability to stay upright and healthy enough to throw no-look passes. I’m assuming he spends his offseason in his “ammortal chamber,” somehow regenerating cartilage and defying what a dozen years of living in Detroit does to one’s body. He isn’t going away for 2026, which means the Niners need to up their game — particularly on the defensive side, where youthful enthusiasm can only go so far against sage veteran play — to beat him at least twice in a season.
Then there are the Seahawks.
No reasonable argument can be made for the 49ers here. Not after they failed to score a single touchdown against Seattle in two games over a three-week span.
That’s not a rivalry; that’s bullying.
The Seahawks defense has morphed into one of the best units in recent NFL history, and, most terrifyingly, they appear to be just getting started. They are young (Nick Emmanwori is 21 years old), fast, exceptionally violent, preposterously well-coached, and not going anywhere.
One should suspect that Seattle will be even better in 2026, as they have so few question marks that they’ll easily be able to invest in a new right guard and another serious receiver this offseason, just to see if they can score 50 with Sam Darnold, of all people, at quarterback.
So, what do the 49ers have to do to close the gap? How do you solve a problem like a defense that treats its end zone like a restricted government facility?
That’s what the next eight months are to determine. The NFL never sleeps; it just enters a different state of consciousness.
But the mandate is clear: John Lynch’s front office needs to look at the roster not with the goal of beating the Chiefs, Bears, or Broncos in February, but with the specific, obsessive goal of beating the Seahawks and Rams from September to December.
Think locally, win globally.
Because if you build a team designed to dismantle Seattle and outlast Los Angeles, you have built a team that can beat anyone come January and February.
Forget the drought. Forget the “Quest for Six.”
Take care of the division, and the rest should take care of itself.