Can the 49ers Stop Chiefs RB Isiah Pacheco?

In just the past two months, the 49ers defense has given up 6.1 yards per carry to Cardinals running back James Conner, 6.0 yards per carry to Packers running back Aaron Jones and 6.2 yards per carry to Lions running back David Montgomery. Not good.

Grant Cohn | Jan 30, 2024

In this story:

San Francisco 49ers

Most people the next two weeks will discuss whether the 49ers can stop Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl, and for good reason -- he's the best quarterback in the league, maybe of all time.

But the 49ers' ability or inability to stop Chiefs running back Isiah Pacheco could be the No. 1 deciding factor in the outcome of the game. And that's because the 49ers run defense really isn't performing well.

Through two playoff games, the 49ers are giving up 159 rushing yards per game and 5.6 yards per carry. Both of these statistics would have ranked dead last during the regular season.

Last season, the 49ers gave up just 3.4 yards per carry under defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans. But new DC Steve Wilks prefers to play lighter boxes with two safeties very deep, and as a result the running game has suffered.

Enter Isiah Pacheco. He's 5'10", 216 pounds and he runs a 4.37. He's one of the hardest running players in the league. If the 49ers play light boxes against him, he'll eat them up. If they load the box to stop him, Patrick Mahomes will take play-action shots down the field.

No team wants to load the box against Mahomes -- he's too dangerous. Which means the 49ers front seven will have to stop Pacheco without an eighth man in the box.

Let's see if the 49ers run defense holds up.

Published Jan 30, 2024

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.