The 49ers have made three NFC Championship Game appearances in the last four seasons, and largely, that's in part of the guys on their roster.
It’s still mindboggling that players like Trent Williams, Nick Bosa and Deebo Samuel play for the same team. And when it seemed like the stars were aligned for San Francisco, the 49ers added Christian McCaffrey amid the 2022 NFL season.
With a roster as talented as the 49ers', Fred Warner was asked to do the unimaginable in a recent interview: Name the 49ers’ best five players. Like any confident player, he put himself atop the rest.
“Humbly, I’ll put myself at one,” Warner said on the “Bussin’ With the Boys” podcast, which was recorded on Feb. 10 and uploaded Tuesday. “And then two through five, you for sure got to go Trent, Bosa, George [Kittle], and then you got Deebo and Christian.”
Phew, OK. That wasn’t so bad, right?
Wrong. The task became more challenging when Warner was then asked to rank them -- in order.
The easy part was keeping himself in the No. 1 slot. And after much deliberation on who should follow, the 49ers' star linebacker came to a difficult conclusion.
San Francisco 49ers
“I would for sure put Trent [and] Bosa two and three,” Warner said. “You can sit there and flip-flop them. [But] since we’re talking about Trent being the best player in the league, then we’ll put him at two. Bosa just won Defensive Player of the Year, sorry buddy, you’re three. It is what it is.”
The final two spots on his top-five rankings, though, required the most thought. With the addition of McCaffrey in late October, the 49ers have so many offensive weapons and dual-threat talents. There's a receiver who can play running back and a running back who can play receiver (and sometimes quarterback).
Ultimately, a decision had to be made.
“Four and five is tough because I got three guys in mind," Warner said. "Deebo, Christian and George. One of them has to sit in honorable mention.
"I’m going to put Christian and Deebo in four and five and I’m going to put George in honorable mention."
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Warner made it clear that Kittle is his "boy" and agreed that the tight end would probably be the "coolest" with Warner's list. The People's Tight End probably will listen and laugh it off, anyway.