The first shoe dropped March 18. The other fell a couple days before the draft, though we didn’t learn of it until Saturday.
Left tackle Joe Staley and defensive tackle DeForest Buckner, arguably the two most respected players on the team when Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch arrived in 2017, are now ex-49ers. The team traded Buckner to Indianapolis in mid-March. And on the final day of the 2020 NFL draft, the Niners announced they were trading for tackle Trent Williams, shortly before they acknowledged Staley is retiring.
The 49ers will move on without them, but will be diminished by their absence.