How the 49ers Will Improve their Pass Rush in 2024
The 49ers had one of the most underperforming pass rushes in the NFL last season.
Despite having Nick Bosa, Javon Hargrave and Chase Young, the 49ers defense ranked just 20th out of 32 teams in sack percentage. And that's because their pass rush was vanilla and predictable. They rarely blitzed or stunted the defensive linemen. Instead, they rushed the same four defensive linemen into the same four pass-rush lanes almost every snap. And opponents took advantage.
That's a big reason the 49ers fired Steve Wilks and hired Brandon Staley to help new defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen. Sorensen is a former player whom the current players like and respect. Staley is a scheme specialist who can help evolve the 49ers stodgy defensive system.
Expect to see linebackers, safeties and nickelbacks frequently rush the opposing quarterback this season. That means Talanoa Hufanga, Fred Warner, De'Vondre Campbell, Deommodore Lenoir and Renardo Green all should get opportunities to blitz.
That doesn't mean that the 49ers will become a team that sends five or six rushers every snap. It means that while some unconventional rushers will blitz, some defensive linemen will drop into coverage. I'm talking Leonard Floyd, Maliek Collin and Jordan Elliott. The 49ers pass rush will be much more exotic this season and will keep opposing offenses on their toes.
Of course, it remains to be seen if the 49ers actually can stop the run this season as opposed to last season when teams gashed them on the ground. But if the 49ers defense can get to third down, they should be able to get off the field.
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.