Are the San Francisco 49ers the best team in the NFL right now? Look, I don’t think it’s close when you consider the circumstances. San Francisco is 5-0, quarterback Brock Purdy is playing at an MVP level, and the 49ers just added a piece of history to an already impressive start. With a team full of injuries.

Per Doug Clawson on X, the 49ers are 3-0 this season so far versus the Broncos, Seahawks, and Rams. That makes them the first team since the 1981 Denver Broncos with 3 wins through 5 games versus the previous season’s conference championship teams.

San Francisco has already taken down three of those four teams, and it hasn’t lost a game yet. It’s a brutal stretch for the schedule to start a season like that and the 49ers can thank the NFL for it. Nonetheless, they made it happen, and they’ve come out on top. 

Why this 49ers start is different

We need to appreciate how special this season has been so far. I would argue no team in the NFL has been hit harder by injuries than the 49ers, both in the preseason and through the first five weeks of the regular season.

And yet, they keep winning. This is a team that finds a way no matter who is on the field.

Now, we have seen this movie before. San Francisco has started hot in past seasons. It has also played through piles of injuries before, and none of it ended in a Super Bowl. I’m not saying this year ends with a ring, because I truly have no idea, and neither does anybody else. With that being said, this team has shown through five games it is completely capable of getting there.

Purdy has been the top-performing quarterback in the league. And that’s a big deal, because so much of what San Francisco does offensively runs through him making the right play when the personnel around him keeps changing.

Kyle Shanahan and Raheem Morris deserve their flowers

The coaching job that Kyle Shanahan has done has been phenomenal. He has kept this offense humming, continued to develop Purdy, and made it work regardless of who suits up on a given Sunday. Plenty of coaches lean on their stars. Shanahan is winning without a bunch of them.

The defensive side tells the same story. Robert Saleh left to become the head coach of the Tennessee Titans, and the 49ers brought in Raheem Morris as defensive coordinator. That move has been a home run. Morris has his unit firing on all cylinders, and it is hitting impressive marks without key players on the field. 

Then there’s the offensive line. Coming into the season, Chris Foerster’s group was one of the biggest question marks on the roster. Through five games, the 49ers have allowed only three sacks. All three came on Sunday against the Seahawks. It took five full games for San Francisco to give up a single sack. For a unit that was supposed to be the weak link, that is remarkable.

Championship-level football in October

Obviously, the season is long. What matters most is what a team does in January and, if it gets there, February. Nobody hands out trophies in October.

Can the 49ers sustain this? Will the injuries eventually become too much to handle? Maybe, and maybe. Who knows? Those are fair questions for any team, and they are fair questions for this one.

But I’m not going to pretend that I don’t see what’s happening. San Francisco is playing championship-level football through the first month of the season. It is beating last year’s best teams, protecting its quarterback, and getting elite play from Purdy while key contributors watch from the sideline.

A 5-0 start guarantees nothing. Still, based on everything this team has faced, my eyes tell me the San Francisco 49ers are the best team in football. They should be treated that way, and I expect them to keep proving it.