Christian McCaffrey's Injury Return Excites Fans as 49ers Survive Win vs. Baker, Bucs

The San Francisco 49ers beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, despite their absolute best efforts to give the game away.

San Francisco squeaked by with a 23-20 win, as Jake Moody hit a game-winning field goal as time expired.

The game marked the return of Christian McCaffrey, who had a solid if unspectacular 2024 debut, rushing 13 times for 39 yards while adding six catches for 68 yards.

Fans were just relieved to see him back in action and making an impact:

But the contest also included a San Francisco fumbled punt, three missed field goals by Moody and four defensive penalties on Tampa's game-tying drive late in the fourth quarter. It was sloppy football, and fans took notice of that, too:

A win's a win, and the Niners will take it, ugly as it was. But the 5-4 Niners have plenty to clean up as they make a push for the playoffs in the second half of the season—how has one of the most dominant teams in the NFL last season been so middling this year?

Some of the answers are obvious. San Francisco has dealt with a ton of injuries. The special teams unit has been incredibly poor. Brock Purdy hasn't been bad, but he also hasn't looked like a player capable of elevating an offense to elite levels on his own.

Other answers are murky. Are the Niners suffering from the hangover of being Super Bowl losers last season? How much of a distraction were the offseason holdouts of Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams? Have teams simply started figuring the Niners out?

However you slice it, this team doesn't have the same feel as the dominant group from a year ago. A late-season surge could change that narrative, and having McCaffrey back will be a major help. But deeper issues appear to be lurking under the surface.