The 49ers had a breakout year last season, minutes away from winning the Super Bowl before letting it slip out of their hands.
They instead go into the 2020 season with a sour taste in their mouth, ready for revenge, with a majority of their same offensive weapons at their disposal. However, they did lose some key contributors with Emmanuel Sanders departing for New Orleans and Matt Breida being shipped off to Miami.
The Niners added some firepower in the draft with wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk out of Arizona State, but overall, coach Kyle Shanahan will entrust major skill positions to some relatively inexperienced pieces.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
Two of the pieces that will carry a larger load on the team this season are running back Raheem Mostert and wide receiver Deebo Samuel, players that became household names late last season.
Should the 49ers feel comfortable relying on them? Well, if their surface-level numbers during these eight-game stretches are any indication, then Kyle Shanahan will have some extreme firepower.
Raheem Mostert
Coming into 2019, Mostert projected as the third running back on the depth chart behind Tevin Coleman and Breida, so there was an expectation that Mostert's greatest contribution to the squad would come on special teams. While he excelled in that department, injuries in the backfield allowed him to get his some opportunities to run the ball midseason. And he never looked back.
San Francisco 49ers
Over the last eight games of the regular season and postseason combined, including the Super Bowl, Mostert ran for 715 yards on 117 attempts to go with 11 rushing touchdowns. Projected over a full 16-game season, that rate of production would put him on pace for 234 attempts, 1430 rushing yards and 22 touchdowns.
Last season's NFL regular season rushing leader, Tennessee Titans' Derrick Henry, carried the ball 303 times for 1,540 yards and 16 touchdowns. Henry averaged 5.1 yards per carry, compared to an astounding 6.1 yards for Mostert during that stretch.
The last 49ers running back to rush for more than 1,300 yards was Frank Gore back in 2006 when he ran for a whopping 1,695 yards. Yet, during his illustrious career, Gore never rushed for more than 10 touchdowns in a season, one shy of the total that Mostert accumulated in the final eight game stretch.
[49ERS INSIDER PODCAST: Listen to the latest episode]
Deebo Samuel
With superstar tight end George Kittle as the main focal point of the air attack, many assumed the Samuel could ease his way into the wide receiver rotation behind Marquise Goodwin and Dante Pettis.
Samuel, a rookie, showed brief flashes of his potential over the first half of the season, but really took his game up a notch once the team acquired Sanders to line up opposite of him. The attention paid to Sanders allowed Samuel to flourish in open space, and become the dynamic weapon the 49ers knew they drafted.
In fact, by the end of the season, Samuel outpaced Sanders' production by a healthy margin to essentially become the team's No. 1 wide receiver option.
In the last eight games of the regular season, Samuel hauled in 35 receptions for 575 yards and two touchdowns, which would have put him on pace for a 70 reception, 1,150 yard season if that same production was amounted during a 16-game schedule. A 49ers wide receiver has not surpassed 1,150 yards receiving since Anquan Boldin in 2013 (1,179 yards).
[RELATED: Chad Johnson's NSFW praise for Deebo]
Samuel also excelled in the ground attack. Over the last five regular season games, Samuel rushed for 122 yards and two touchdowns, which projected over a 16-game season would produce a total of nearly 400 yards rushing and six touchdowns. The highest regular-season rushing total for a 49ers wideout in the last decade was by Ted Ginn Jr. with 68 total yards on the ground.
It is yet to be seen how Mostert and Samuel will handle the duties of being the sure fire No. 1 options for a whole season, but the numbers sure paint a very optimistic picture.
[SPORTS UNCOVERED: Listen to the latest episode]