The Final Grade For the 2021 49ers Defensive Linemen

Give credit to defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans and defensive line coach Kris Kocurek, the best defensive line coach in the league.

Grant Cohn | Feb 8, 2022

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San Francisco 49ers

Both Javon Kinlaw and Dee Ford missed most of the season, and the defensive line still was the deepest and the best position on the 49ers.

It struggled at times early in the season as Kinlaw and Ford were in and out of the lineup with injuries. The 49ers drafted Kinlaw in Round 1 and traded a second-round pick for Dee Ford and gave him a five-year, $85.5 million contract extension, so the 49ers were patient with them.

But by midseason, the 49ers had placed both Kinlaw and Ford on the Injured Reserve List, and then the defensive line began to take shape and to dominate.

Armstead moved from defensvie end to defensvie tackle and finished the season with 6 sacks and a career-high 63 tackles.

Arden Key emerged as a terrific third-down interior pass rusher and recorded 6.5 sacks in the 49ers' final 10 regular season games. He's a free agent who most likely will get a big contract this offseason.

Nick Bosa came off an ACL tear and played even better than he did before the injury. He finished the 2021 season with 15.5 sacks, 32 quarterback hits and 21 tackles for loss and, most importantly, missed zero games, although he left the wildcard playoff game against the Cowboys with a concussion in the first half.

Samson Ebukam started the season slowly as he transitioned from playing outside linebacker on the Rams to playing defensive end on the 49ers, but settled into his new position and recorded 5.5 sacks during the 49ers' final six games including the postseason.

And then there was D.J. Jones, Kevin Givens, Jordan Willis, Charles Omenihu and Kentavius Street, who played well, too. The entire defensive line did. It ranked third in the NFL in sack percentage and seventh in fewest yards per carry allowed.

Give credit to defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans and defensive line coach Kris Kocurek, the best defensive line coach in the league.

FINAL GRADE: A-PLUS

Published Feb 8, 2022

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.