Have the 49ers Improved their Run Defense this Offseason?
![Jaguars director of football communications Dylan Morton talks with Jacksonville Jaguars defensive tackle Arik Armstead (91) at the end of the organized team activity session Monday, June 3, 2024 at EverBank StadiumÕs Miller Electric Center in Jacksonville, Fla. [Bob Self/Florida Times-Union]](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_3000,h_1687,x_0,y_0/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/all_49ers/01j2c249q715qr2wrnf3.jpg "Jaguars director of football communications Dylan Morton talks with Jacksonville Jaguars defensive tackle Arik Armstead (91) at the end of the organized team activity session Monday, June 3, 2024 at EverBank StadiumÕs Miller Electric Center in Jacksonville, Fla. [Bob Self/Florida Times-Union]")
The 49ers don't have many weaknesses, but run defense clearly was one of them last season.
In 2022 under defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans, the 49ers gave up just 3.4 yards per carry -- second-fewest in the NFL. But in 2023 under defensive coordinator Steve Wilks, the 49ers gave up 4.1 yards per carry, which ranked 14th out of 32 teams. And in the NFC Championship Game, which the 49ers nearly lost, they gave up 148 rushing yards in the first half. And that was with Arik Armstead and Dre Greenlaw, two of the 49ers' better run defenders.
Now Armstead is on the Jaguars and Greenlaw is recovering from a torn Achilles he suffered just a few months ago in the Super Bowl. Their replacements are defensive tackle Maliek Collins, who's better against the pass than the run, and linebacker De'Vondre Campbell, who also is better against the pass than the run.
So while the 49ers' pass rush and pass coverage should be outstanding in 2024, their run defense once again will be a major question mark.
On their starting defensive line, none of the four players are great against the run. Nick Bosa, Javon Hargrave, Maliek Collins and Leonard Floyd all are pass-rush specialists. And at linebacker, both Campbell and Fred Warner are coverage specialists.
The return of strong safety Talanoa Hufanga certainly will help the run defense because he's a playmaker around the line of scrimmage. But there's only so much he can do on his own until Greenlaw returns.
Don't be surprised if the 49ers give up lots of yards on the ground early in the season.
GRANT COHN
Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.