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Talanoa Hufanga Suffers Torn ACL

Terrible.

Grant Cohn

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SANTA CLARA -- The 49ers have lost Talanoa Hufanga for the season.

Hufanga tore his ACL in the third quarter of the 49ers' 27-14 win over the Buccaneers on Sunday. He went to make a tackle in the flat, his knee buckled and he crumpled to the ground. Then he went inside the blue medical tent, got checked out and finally got carted off the field.

The 49ers expect Hufanga to be ready for Week 1 of next season, but he might need a rehabilitation plan for training camp, which means he might not be fully recovered by late July when training camp starts. This is a devastating setback for Hufanga, who becomes eligible for his first contract extension in March. Clearly, it seems unlikely he'll receive that extension until he fully recovers.

Hufanga had 3 interceptions in 10 games, but he has only 52 tackles and zero sacks despite blitzing frequently. He wasn't playing up to the All Pro standard he set last season. Perhaps he needed defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans and doesn't fit Steve Wilks' defense as well.

After Hufanga went down, the next man up on Sunday was rookie Ji'Ayir Brown, who intercepted a pass in the end zone and broke up a pass in the end zone as well. He immediately made an impact in the fourth quarter of a game that was still alive.

Remember, the 49ers traded up for Brown in Round 3 of this year's draft. He's a premium athlete. The 49ers should be in good hands with him at strong safety.

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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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