The Pro Football Hall of Fame welcomed five new members on Thursday night at NFL Honors.
Quarterback Drew Brees, running back Roger Craig, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, linebacker Luke Kuechly and kicker Adam Vinatieri will have their busts in Canton.
Brees and Fitzgerald are first-ballot Hall of Famers, and Kuechly and Vinatieri were in their second year of eligibility.
Craig has waited 28 years for his knock on the door. He was one of three seniors candidates in a group that also included Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft as the coach and contributor candidates, respectively.
For the second consecutive year, only one of the five finalists in that group made it into the Hall of Fame. Sterling Sharpe was the only inductee of that group in the Class of 2025.
Seniors L.C. Greenwood and Ken Anderson, like Belichick and Kraft, did not receive the 80 percent required for induction in the Class of 2026.
After much criticism about the selectors’ failure to enshrine Belichick in his first year of eligibility, the elections of Brees, Craig, Fitzgerald, Vinatieri and Kuechly were met with a standing ovation when announced at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
Brees learned of his election from Dan Fouts; Ronnie Lott and Charles Haley surprised Craig with the news; Morten Andersen had the honor of telling Vinatieri; Randy Moss informed Fitzgerald; and Julius Peppers was the Hall of Famer who welcomed Kuechly into the Hall.
The Hall of Fame’s membership now stands at 387.
The newest members’ enshrinement will take place Saturday, Aug. 8 in Canton.
Several big-name NFL players returned from big injuries in 2024 to have big seasons in 2025. But 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey had the biggest comeback.
He won the Comeback Player of the Year award, which was announced at NFL Honors on Tuesday night.
McCaffrey received 31 of 50 first-place votes and 395 total points. He beat out Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson (221 points, nine first-place votes), Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (167, six), Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence (130, two) and Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs (40). Saints wide receiver Chris Olave and Colts quarterback Philip Rivers each received one first-place vote.
McCaffrey is the first 49ers player to win Comeback Player of the Year since running back Garrison Hearst in 2001 and the first non-quarterback from any team to win the award since Keenan Allen in 2017.
He missed 13 games during the 2024 season with multiple injuries, limiting him to only 65 touches for 348 yards with no touchdowns. He rebounded in 2025 to start all 17 games for San Francisco, rushing 311 times for 1,202 yards and 10 touchdowns while also leading the NFL in receiving yards by a running back.
McCaffrey caught a team-leading 102 receptions for 924 yards and seven touchdowns, finishing the season with 2,126 yards from scrimmage.
He led the NFL with 119 total first downs gained and recorded four 100-yard rushing performances.
The NFL announced today that the 49ers and Rams will play in Melbourne, Australia, during the 2026 season, and 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey isn’t sure that’s such a good idea.
Talking to reporters at Super Bowl festivities in San Francisco, McCaffrey questioned how it’s going to work out for the 49ers to have to travel farther than any NFL team has ever traveled for a game.
“Australia’s pretty far,” McCaffrey said. “I’d love to see how the schedule would work. Transparently, that might be a little too far. You have to find another way to do that. It’d be really cool . . . we don’t care where we play, we’ll show up and play, but Australia, what’s that flight, 20 hours or something?”
It’s not quite as far as McCaffrey thought: A direct flight from San Francisco to Melbourne takes about 16 hours, and the flight home will only be about 14 hours, thanks to the tailwind across the Pacific. It’s a long way, and even if players think it’s too long to travel, the NFL has made clear that it wants the money it’s making in international markets and is only going to keep sending teams far from home.
49ers linebacker Fred Warner tried to make it back from his Week 6 ankle injury before the end of the 49ers’ season, but ran out of time when the team lost to the Seahawks in the divisional round.
Warner’s next snaps will come with a new face calling the defense for the Niners. Robert Saleh’s one-year return to the team helped him land the head coaching job in Tennessee and the 49ers have replaced him with former Falcons head coach Raheem Morris.
During an appearance on PFT Live from the Super Bowl media center on Thursday, Warner said he’s heard Morris has an “infectious energy” and called it “exactly what we need” as they try to return to “dominance” on the defensive side of the ball. Warner said he’s also ready to embrace any tweaks that Morris might have in mind.
“We’ve run the same scheme for so long,” Warner said. “It’s always been four down lineman, cover-3 base defense. The league evolves and you have to evolve as a defense or else you’re just gonna get left behind. You do have to welcome those different changes.”
Health was a major impediment for the defense in 2025, so any changes Morris decides to implement will have a better chance of succeeding if the 49ers are able to have players like Warner and Nick Bosa in the lineup for most or all of the season.
Mac Jones wouldn’t mind following the Sam Darnold blueprint for resurrecting himself as a starting NFL quarterback after early stumbles.
Darnold spent a year as a backup with the 49ers before moving on to the Vikings and helping them to 14 wins during the 2024 season. Darnold then jumped to the Seahawks and will be back at Levi’s Stadium for the Super Bowl on Sunday.
Jones was the No. 2 quarterback for the Niners this season and wound up starting eight games while Brock Purdy was injured. Jones threw for 2,151 yards, 13 touchdowns and six interceptions while completing just under 70 percent of his passes and he said on NFL Network that he understands why Darnold credits his time with Kyle Shanahan with helping him take his game to another level. Jones also said that he thinks his play showed that he’s capable of a No. 1 job.
“Honestly, it’s a business. You know how this goes,” Jones said. “I’ve proven I can be a starter. I’ve proven I can be a starter in multiple different spots. I have 50-plus starts or whatever. I know how to do it, but it’s also a business. I understand both sides of it.”
The business part of things is that Jones remains under contract for the 2026 season and Shanahan said last month that he’d “be very surprised” if Jones was not back with the team. That level of surprise could drop with the right trade offer from another club, but it remains to be seen if that interest will materialize next month.
