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Can the 49ers Shut Down the New York Jets Rushing Attack?

It's not secret how the Jets will try to attack the 49ers defense on Monday night.

Grant Cohn

Dec 24, 2023; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Jets running back Breece Hall (20) carries the ball during the first half against the Washington Commanders at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
Dec 24, 2023; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Jets running back Breece Hall (20) carries the ball during the first half against the Washington Commanders at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
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It's not secret how the Jets will try to attack the 49ers defense on Monday night.

Aaron Rodgers is 40, he's coming off a torn Achilles and he hasn't played in a year. New York is going to run the ball as much as possible. And that's a good strategy against the 49ers.

The 49ers have an elite defense, but not against the run. Last season, they gave up a whopping 5.1 yards per carry in the playoffs. If the Lions had been more committed to running the ball in the second half of the NFC Championship Game, the 49ers might not have pulled off the 17-point comeback.

Now the 49ers defense seems even more vulnerable against the run. Leonard Floyd and De'Vondre Campbell are two new additions to the defense who excel against the pass and struggle against the run. In addition, George Odum most likely will be starting at strong safety, and he's not a great run defender, either.

Meanwhile, the Jets have Breece Hall, who gained 1,595 yards from scrimmage and scored 9 touchdowns last season. He's their Christian McCaffrey. Which means the offense goes through him even though they have a future Hall of Fame quarterback.

So the 49ers have to have a plan to stop the Jets rushing attack. Maybe they need to load the box or use a five-man front or do something out of the ordinary. But if they sit back and let Hall average five yards per carry, they'll lose. You can count on that.

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Grant Cohn

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.

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