NFL Panic Meter: The Fred Warner injury might ruin the 49ers' season

The San Francisco 49ers’ injury luck the past two seasons is hard to believe.

Last season the 49ers were the most injured team in the NFL by a wide margin. This season, their story hasn’t been a 4-2 start. It’s that they’ve once again had to navigate an endless injury report.

Finally on Sunday, the tipping point might have been reached.

The 49ers started the season with questions on defense. They had a lot of young and unproven players, but their hope was wrapped around two players: linebacker Fred Warner and defensive end Nick Bosa. Warner was a first-team All-Pro in four of the past five seasons. Bosa is a former NFL Defensive Player of the Year and one of the best pass rushers in football.

Both are done for the season. Bosa tore his ACL earlier this season. Then on Sunday, Warner suffered a dislocated and fractured ankle, ending his season. Now it’s time to worry.

The 49ers defense was already feeling the Bosa loss. In Bosa’s three games, they hadn’t allowed more than 307 yards in a game and opponents averaged 16.3 points. In the three games since, the 49ers have allowed at least 325 yards in each game and are allowing 26.3 points per game. And now the 49ers have to move forward without arguably the best linebacker in the NFL.

The replacement for Warner appears to be Tatum Bethune, a 2024 seventh-round pick. The 49ers have had a tremendous lineage of off-ball linebackers and perhaps Bethune is the next star in the middle, but coming close to matching Warner’s production is a lot to ask. Perhaps the 49ers are active at the trade deadline, but it’s almost impossible to find players near the level of Bosa or Warner available in a trade. Most likely, the 49ers are just going to take a big step back on defense, hope that defensive coordinator Robert Saleh cooks up enough magic to keep the 49ers in games and then pray the offense gets healthy and can outscore enough opponents to stay afloat.

The 49ers will miss linebacker Fred Warner, who suffered a season-ending ankle injury. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

(Mike Ehrmann via Getty Images)

The 49ers are 4-2 but play in a tough NFC West. The Seattle Seahawks look very good and the Los Angeles Rams have moments in which they look like a Super Bowl contender. It’ll be hard to keep up with them unless the defense surprises everyone. And then the 49ers have some major questions moving forward.

The 49ers are an aging team. They have plenty of key players in their 30s or late 20s. Christian McCaffrey will be 30 next season and the 49ers have already given him an NFL-high 154 touches, which won’t extend his prime. Other stalwarts like Trent Williams and George Kittle are getting to dangerous ages in which their production could fall off. Bosa and Warner will be 29 and 30 years old, respectively, coming off major injuries. It’s a little scary.

This 49ers group hasn’t won a Super Bowl, though it has come close. Time might be running out on this core. Injuries this season have made the road harder, and two crushing season-ending injuries on defense could be ruinous blows. What did the 49ers do to deserve this run of bad luck?

Panic meter: Very high, for this season and next

The Bills are suddenly sliding

The Buffalo Bills had to feel good at 4-0. They had watched all the other presumed contenders in the AFC deal with injuries or bad losses. The path to the No. 1 seed seemed very clear.

It’s not so clear anymore. The path to winning the AFC East isn’t even clear anymore.

The Bills lost two games in a row and aren’t even in first place of the division after six weeks. That would be the New England Patriots, who are tied with the Bills at 4-2 and at this point have the tiebreaker due to a win over Buffalo in Week 5.

Monday night’s loss to the Falcons wasn’t pretty. The defense allowed 335 yards in the first half, the most for the franchise since Week 2 of the 2001 season, according to ESPN Research. The offense was disjointed all night, scoring just once on their final 10 possessions. That shouldn’t happen with Josh Allen at quarterback.

The Bills still are a Super Bowl contender, but now it looks like they benefitted from an easy schedule in September, and October has exposed some flaws. They’ll want to get on track quickly, because the Patriots don’t look like they’re going away.

Panic meter: Ramping up, considering the Super Bowl or bust expectations

Eagles struggling, too

The final two undefeated teams in the NFL were the Eagles and Bills. They started 4-0. Neither team has won since.

The Eagles suffered a strange loss in Week 6. They were big favorites against the New York Giants for a Thursday night game and seemed flat all night. A team that lost only one game from the start of October in 2024 to the end of September in 2025 suddenly lost two games in a five-day span.

The Eagles got things together after a slow start last season and nearly ran the table on the way to a Super Bowl. It’s easy to look at the roster, see all the talent and assume they’ll get hot again. But it hasn’t been easy. Saquon Barkley’s production has fallen off a cliff so far this season. The passing game looks bad. The defense hasn’t been great either, with a lack of depth at cornerback really standing out. The Eagles are too good to fade away and not be a contender. But they look way more vulnerable than last season.

Panic meter: Shouldn’t be outrageously high, but this is Philly we’re talking about

Commanders drop another game

The Washington Commanders had everything go right last season when they lost only five regular-season games. They’ve lost three games already this season.

The Monday night loss to the Chicago Bears was a rough one. A fumble on a handoff late in the game set up the Bears for a short drive and a game-winning field goal as time expired. Instead of a 4-2 start and a tie atop the NFC East with the slumping Eagles, the Commanders are 3-3.

Washington should be fine. It’s not ideal to lose at home to a team you probably should beat, but it happens. It doesn’t look like the Eagles are going to run away with the division. But Monday night was a reminder that the magical ride of last season, with all those dramatic wins, was never going to repeat. This is what regression looks like.

Panic meter: The Commanders will be fine, but it won’t come easy

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