It's already been a strange season for the reigning NFC champions.

The San Francisco 49ers lost their top wide receiver and interior defender to injuries. They lost games – games they could win comfortably – to two division opponents. And their history of struggling with the Minnesota Vikings and Kansas City Chiefs defenses continued in 2024.

And yet, even after a 4-4 start filled with mistakes and injuries, they remain right in the middle of the division race – a half-game behind the first-place Arizona Cardinals.

And even though they lost Brandon Aiyuk and Javon Hargrave, they still have a loaded roster with more talent on the way. What can we expect from them in the second half of the season? Here are a few predictions…

The 49ers will share a backfield… but only at first

If Christian McCaffrey returns for Sunday's game at Tampa Bay as expected, the 49ers will be in the position of being rich at running back. They will have the reigning Offensive Player of the Year as well as running-hard Jordan Mason, who helped the offense through the first eight games and is fourth in the NFL in rushing yards.

The 49ers will likely each play an important role when McCaffrey returns for the first time. You could imagine them alternating series or using McCaffrey as a third defender or in the red zone as they ensure McCaffrey and his recovering Achilles tendons aren't overused.

But if McCaffrey returns to full strength in the coming weeks, it's also easy to imagine the 49ers slipping back into last year's habits. McCaffrey was the best offensive player in the league because he was a problem on all three downs and scored a ton – 21 – touchdowns.

Additionally, running backs coach Bobby Turner typically doesn't take an approach where tailbacks are controlled by committee. He's more of a hot hand theorist. And if McCaffrey gets hot, it's hard to imagine Turner and Kyle Shanahan taking him off the field for any length of time, especially as wins become increasingly important in November and December.

If that happens, Mason would take a much smaller role and handsome rookie Isaac Guerendo would take most of his gameday snaps on special teams.

The Len Eshmont Award is the 49ers' most prestigious end-of-season honor. It's essentially the team's MVP award, voted on by players, and it dates back to 1957.

No cornerback has won it since 1975, when Jimmy Johnson got it. Johnson, who also won it in 1969, died in May at the age of 86. He was so popular with his coaches that they retired his number, 37, immediately after his final snap.

In this way, it would be beautiful poetry if Lenoir won this season. It might as well be entirely deserved. He's been the 49ers' most consistent player since spring training, and it's not lost on his teammates that Lenoir is having the best season of his career while manning two positions: outside cornerback and nickel cornerback.

Of course, a stellar year for Lenoir also means the 49ers may not be able to re-sign him. He is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent in March.

That was fresh.@Dmo_lenoir X #94Niners pic.twitter.com/BNTBmKmWTD

— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) October 28, 2024

George Kittle will lead the team in touchdowns…just

The back half of this season could look a lot like 2022, when McCaffrey arrived in Week 7 and then scored three touchdowns — rushing, receiving and throwing — in Los Angeles the following week.

If you count the passing touchdown, he scored 11 points for the 49ers in the regular season, tied for the team lead with Kittle. We expect Kittle to win hands down this season considering McCaffrey won't play until Week 10 at the earliest and because Kittle has a much larger lead than he did two years ago. His six touchdowns are double the next best mark (Jauan Jennings, Brock Purdy and Mason each have three). He also leads the team with 503 receiving yards near the middle.

Brock Purdy will receive market value for a starting quarterback at the highest level

Will it be $50, 55, 60 or 65 million a year? Get ready for a lot of chatter and debate when it comes to the 49ers quarterback and how expensive his next contract should be. It's already a regular topic of conversation, even if Purdy isn't eligible for an extension until the end of the season.

The answer is: If Purdy plays the second half of the season like he played the first, he will receive the current quota for a top quarterback.

Yes, he needs to take tougher action against men. And yes, his completion rate — which was around 70 percent last season — is down to 64.5 percent this year. But he still ranked fourth in passing yards and eighth in rushing yards before the bye and promises to be compensated like a top-10 passer.

That's exactly how the system works.

After all, the 49ers made Jimmy Garoppolo the NFL's highest-paid player in 2018 with five starts. What's interesting is that Garoppolo's reign as the highest-paid player was short-lived. He signed his contract in early February and was ranked 11th in the highest paid category before the end of the year. His $27.5 million per year figure, which was so crazy in February 2020, now seems strange.

It should also be a lesson for the 49ers: the quicker the deal gets done, the more they save (see: Aiyuk, Brandon).

Ultimately, Brian Schneider will not keep his job

Shanahan had nothing bad to say about Schneider and his special teams team last week, while also dispelling any notion that the 49ers might part ways with the ailing Schneider during game week.

“It didn’t even occur to me,” he said.

His comments were no surprise. As Shanahan noted, special teams had their best performance of the season, essentially playing to a draw against the Dallas Cowboys' top-rated special teams team. Perhaps more importantly, there aren't many midseason options for a team when it comes to special teams.

After the season? That's another question.

Jake Moody should be back after the bye, which should mean more touchbacks and fewer risky kickoff returns. But the weather is only getting worse, there are games coming up in Green Bay and Buffalo, and it's getting harder to consistently shoot the ball deep into the end zone.

Considering what happened in the first eight games, Schneider and the special teams don't have much room for error. Each faux pas is magnified and thrown onto the pile with the others. This group needs to be near perfect, or at least flawless, and looking at the first half of the season, it's hard to imagine.

The 49ers will be tied with a rival

The 49ers, who are projected and ranked 11th in the NFC playoff picture The athleteThe model that has a 38 percent chance of making the playoffs will likely need to win their division to get into the playoffs, and their biggest competition for that honor will be the…drumroll, please…Los Angeles Rams.

The Rams, the team that opted to trade away draft picks a few years ago, have come full circle in recent seasons by making strong selections that will fuel their future success: running back Kyren Williams, receiver Puka Nacua and edge rushers Byron Young and Jared Vers. Matthew Stafford is now the best quarterback among the 49ers' division rivals.

The teams' Week 15 return game at Levi's Stadium – a Thursday night affair – will be huge. And the 49ers' season finale, a road game last season, is already coming to the forefront considering it comes against a division opponent, the Arizona Cardinals, to whom the 49ers lost in Week 5.

(Top photo by George Kittle: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)