Imagine your a domestic feline. You spent your whole life relaxed and pampered, the lazy game coming naturally to you because the cunning game is such an instinct. The house you live in is yours, despite the human presence, but it’s basically yours. The world you reside in is everything you want it to be. This is YOUR world and you are completely content. Now imagine that somebody let three hungry dogs in. The door swings open with gusto and slams against the wall. The rumbling of paws as they crush the floor beneath them in unison. The growl of each one louder than the next as they volley for a shot at being the first dog to the chow. These aren’t normal animals either. These dogs are nasty and young, and the pace in which they move is not of this world. The drool in their mouths can’t even remain constrained to its home because the speed these beasts rumble. As they collapse the peaceful environment you’ve spent years building for yourself, time slows down for you, but just for a moment, just at a glance so that you can really see the walls closing in. At first one would think if you moved you could survive. Although maybe, despite everything standing in front of you, there might be a safety zone or a way out. There isn’t. The closer the dogs get the worst the snarls and the hotter the breath. You run but there is no use, the dogs are barreling down on top of you now, within the reach of what they only ever see as FOOD. One chomps at your tail but you manage to move just in time, allowing the other to dive as well, but you duck out of the way. The third dog reaches his neck out…and down you go…
THAT’S WHAT PLAYING VS THE 49ER DEFENSIVE LINE IS LIKE FOR A QB.
A cat in the target zone of a fighting dog. The objective of four mad men and whatever reinforcements they bring. This defense is already legendary and the future looks bright as they rebound from injuries just in time to set sail on a new season with glory at the end of the long road towards the super bowl. Welcome to Niner Faithful Radio and may I present to you the NFR Positional Breakdown of the Week, The Defensive Line.
DEFENSIVE END:
Sporting some real talent on the edge, the 49ers are also shrouded in slight mystery as we enter the 2021 season. Defensive end Nick Bosa missed all but 2 games after suffering a torn ACL vs the Jets. Before that, he won defensive rookie of the year honors on the back of a 47 tackle 9 sack performance on the year. He also provided a huge set of games in the playoff run to the eventual super bowl loss vs the chiefs, and nearly had a game ending sack that would have won it all (we all know that was a hold).
His injury progressed well this off-season and towards the end of OTA’s Bosa returned to the team ready to compete, but only time will tell if that knee holds up. Dee Ford on the other hand, never seemed to leave the Niner gym this offseason. With his career on the line and his back looking better than it has in years, the edge game may just find its way back to normal by week 1 should Ford find a way to stay healthy through training camp and pre-season. A turn about this defensive line could use in order to return to the dominant form that terrorized the NFL in 2019.
Should Dee Ford’s back flare up or Nick Bosa take a hit in his recovery somehow between now and week 1, what’s the edge look like moving forward? I’d suspect there would be a slight position battle to watch in pre-season for this very role. The chances one of these edge backups gets to play is pretty high at this point, even if Bosa and Ford play their play count may very well be low. Jordan Willis had just 2.5 sacks last year but those 2.5 were a career high. Kentavious Street is another name you could see get some snaps. Last year he played for the first time since tearing his ACL on his pro day, logging 11 tackles and no sacks in his rare appearances on the field. It seems moving forward the scouts and coaches saw this position as a bit of a need because we did sign 3 separate edge rushers in FA should Bosa and Ford have setbacks. The most promising of these ends, in my opinion, is Samson Ebukum. Samson signed a 2 year 12 million dollar contract this offseason after spending his first 2 seasons with the I5 rival Rams, where he logged 4.5 sacks in each season and always played really well vs the run. Arden Key would eventually sign a 1 year prove it deal, leaving the raiders for the bay area he began his career in. This signing would be followed by 5 year journeyman defensive end Zack Kerr most recently from Carolina where he had 32 tackles and 2 sacks in 2020. Daeshon Hall and Alex Barrett will round out the edge rushers heading into training camp but I’m not so confident they make the final 53. All in all the edge of this defensive line looks to be dominant once more with All-Pro QB hunters solidified by solid depth and cheap free agents fighting to keep playing in the NFL. That’s a recipe for success across the board.
DEFENSIVE TACKLE:
Arik Armstead, a veteran on the Niners and solid plug-in player anywhere on the defensive line is listed as a defensive end, but I’m going to operate on the hopeful assumption that both Bosa and Ford play a lot and well. This would force Armstead back inside where he thrived in 2019 leading the team in sacks with 10. In 2020, not as much. Some would attribute this to the Deforest Buckner trade. The pressure Buckner would create played into Armstead and his long arms. In 2019 this was bread and butter for the 49ers. After we traded Buckner and drafted Javon Kinlaw, Armstead dropped to 3.5 sacks in 2020 but there’s hope yet for Armstead. This year marks the second year for the ever hungry Kinlaw. With the chip on his shoulder to prove himself, he enters this season juiced and ready to be the aggressive anchor Buckner once was and also could never truly be, in Kinlaw there’s a larger ceiling.
Behind the two obvious choices, tackle on this defense is deep and we are proud of it. Be it DJ Jones who logged 20 tackles and 3 sacks in 2020 or, Kevin Givens who played pretty aggressive in 2020 and managed a 16 tackle 1 sack season, the Niners are poised to be really strong inside on the defense despite loosing former 2nd overall pick, Solomon Thomas and solid backup Kerry Hyder, both to free agency. An issue that eventually forced Lynch and Shanahan from making moves in free agency and adding to that depth with the signing of Maurice Hurst (27 tackles 5 sacks with LV) to a 1 year 1.4 million dollar prove-it deal.
Overall this defensive line is the soul of the 49ers getting back to championship contention. This is where, as a team, the Niners lay their pace and set their intentions. They strike fear in the hearts of even the most hardened QBs and running backs seem to lose their gifts when facing our snarling dogs on Sundays. In 2021 expect them to return to form and raise the bar on what a championship defensive line is supposed to look like.
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