Niners Nation
When you build a defense around two players, and both players get hurt in the first couple of months of the season, these are the results that you get. With Nick Bosa and Fred Warner on the field, the San Francisco 49ers allowed four touchdowns on 24 drives.
In the previous nine games, the 49ers’ defense has allowed at least three touchdowns in seven games. None of this should be surprising, as the defense’s pressure rate would have been the fifth-highest this season (39.3 percent) with Bosa on the field. That number dipped to 26.2 percent heading into Week 17 with Bosa off the field, which is the second-lowest in the NFL.
The offseason acquisitions of Bryce Huff and Mykel Williams were supposed to help supplement Bosa as a pass rusher. The vision was clear. Bryce Huff is currently 21st among all edge rushers who have played at least 50 percent of the snaps in terms of win rate. Sam Okuayinonu is 44th.
Those would feel much more impactful if Robert Saleh had the player who finished third in that category in 2024 behind Myles Garrett and Micah Parsons. Bosa is that transcendent talent.
Taking away one of the best pass rushers is one thing. Adding Warner had to feel like a slap in the face to Robert Saleh. Before he went down with an injury, Warner was tied for the second-most run stuffs among all linebackers and had the lowest completion percentage over expectation in the league. He was on pace to have a career season.
There’s one play from the Bears game that magnifies all of the issues with the 49ers’ defense this season:
Only three quarterbacks averaged more time to throw in Week 17 than Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams. On this play, he took a 7-step drop and wasn’t touched until roughly 3.3ish seconds. When an offensive mind like Ben Johnson schemes a design like this up without moving the pocket, he’s telling you what he thinks about the pass rush.
That is the Bosa effect.
The second Warner left the game with an injury in Week 6, Tampa Bay attacked the middle of the field. For years, the middle of the field has been a no-fly zone for opposing offenses. This year, the 49ers are the seventh-worst defense defending passes over the middle and second-worst over the deep middle. Every coordinator who has had Warner has dared teams to target him. They no longer have to worry about that.
As you can see in the play above, Malik Mustapha, the safety at the top of the screen, feels the need to overcompensate and do one of the linebackers’ jobs when, in a perfect world, he should be deep and taking away a touchdown.
That’s the human element of the Warner effect. For a couple of months now, the safeties have been a little nosy with what the linebackers are doing in coverage, and for good reason. Unfortunately, doing somebody else’s job hangs another teammate out...
