The 49ers will have to evaluate their new-look edge group after a major injury.
The blows continued for the San Francisco 49ers this week, as star defensive end Nick Bosa was diagnosed with a torn ACL, effectively ending his season.
Bosa had enjoyed a strong start to the season, but the defensive end felt something was wrong on a pass-rush snap after going down with a non-contact injury. His fears proved to be true, as tests confirmed he tore his ACL, leaving the 49ers with a big hole at defensive end.
San Francisco came into the season looking to develop young talent, drafting defensive players with their first five picks in the 2025 NFL Draft, including three defensive linemen. While the development of rookies and second-year players was going to be paramount to the team’s success, they also needed their stars to play like stars.
Now, they’ll be without one of those stars, leaving more pressure on rookie Mykel Williams and the rest of the defensive end group to pick up the slack.
Will the 49ers test the trade market for a defensive end? And how soon would they start looking for a replacement or additional depth?
“Of course we’re always looking,” general manager John Lynch said on Tuesday about a potential trade. “That’s our job. We’re not afraid, and we’ve been effective in doing that. This is no different. I do think we’re a deep group there, and that depth’s going to be tested. We’ll see what’s out there at the appropriate time.”
It feels more likely that a trade could come near midseason after the 49ers evaluate their current defensive end group. But, that depth is being tested with injuries.
Yetur Gross-Matos, who signed a two-year deal with the team last offseason, has continued to battle a knee injury that has kept him out of several practices over the first three weeks. He was again a ‘DNP’ on Wednesday, raising questions as to how long the injury could be affecting him.
“I see a guy who’s battled to get out there, especially with what he went through this whole offseason,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said about Gross-Matos’s injury. “It’s been good so far, just being able to get him out there on Thursdays and being able to get him to play on Sundays. He’s been able to do that routine and hopefully it gets better, not worse, as the season goes, but it’s something we’ll keep evaluating.”
Shanahan also acknowledged that one to two practices a week for Gross-Matos is “the plan until it would show us that it didn’t have to be the plan.”
While pressure is certainly there for the 49ers, it feels like the lower expectations have made things simpler as they try to move on with life post-Bosa for 2025.
“It’s how we’ve tried to set the tone since we got here in OTAs. Guys haven’t been thinking about expectations, good or bad, guys haven’t been thinking about playoffs, Super Bowl, anything like that,” Shanahan said. “They’ve just been taking it one day at a time and enjoying football and going as hard as they can. It’s been that way since OTAs, it’s been that way through training camp, and it’s been that way through three weeks. So, injuries shouldn’t affect your mindset on that stuff.”
With Bosa out, expect players like Sam Okuayinonu and Bryce Huff to take on a bigger role, at least in the short term, while the 49ers navigate their rotations. Okuayinonu and Huff saw a considerable uptick in snaps this past week, playing 63.6 percent and 54.5 percent of the defensive snaps, respectively, against the Cardinals.
As a veteran, could Huff step up as a potential leader of the group with Bosa out?
“I don’t expect anybody ever to be a leader and do something just different, saying, ‘Hey, I have to be more of a leader today.’ I think Bryce Huff has been a leader since he’s been here,” Shanahan continued. “The guy works every day, doesn’t talk a lot, but when he does, people listen. I love how he’s been here, how he does practice, how he plays in games, and I expect that to continue.”
Category: General Sports
