The 1978 San Francisco 49ers season was the

franchise Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...

's 29th

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

and their 33rd overall. The team began the season hoping to improve upon their previous output of 5–9. Instead, the team started the season 0–4 for the second straight year. The team also suffered a nine-game losing streak. During the off-season, the 49ers acquired

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive American football plays#Offensive terminology, handoffs from the quarterback to Rush (American football)#Offen ...

O. J. Simpson, who originally hailed from San Francisco, from the Buffalo Bills. Although Simpson had been one of the best backs in the league over the previous decade, he was in poor physical condition and had recently undergone knee surgery. As a result, his playing ability was limited. The 49ers finished with the worst record in the league and scored only 219 points the fewest in the league in 1978. Making matters worse is that the first pick in the

1979 NFL Draft The 1979 NFL Draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held May 3–4, 1979, at the Waldorf Astoria ...

was traded to the Bills as part of the Simpson deal. The team set an NFL record with 63 turnovers. The last remaining active member of the 1978 San Francisco 49ers was quarterback

Steve DeBerg Steven Leroy DeBerg (born January 19, 1954) is an American retired professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for 17 years. Early life DeBerg is an alumnus of Savanna High School in Anaheim, Califo ...

, who played his final NFL game in the 1998 season, although he missed the

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

- 1997 seasons.

Personnel

Staff

Roster

Schedule

Standings

References

San Francisco 49ers seasons

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

1978 in San Francisco San {{Americanfootball-season-stub