Why the 49ers Defense Doesn't Tackle Well Anymore

Stopping the run is something young players do to earn a big second contract or something mid-level players do to stay in the league.

Grant Cohn | Nov 8, 2023

In this story:

San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers used to be the best tackling defense in the NFL, but that was back when it was hungry. Back before most of their stars got paid.

Stopping the run is a tough, blue-collar mindset -- it's like shoveling coal. It's exhausting and it's not glamorous. It's something to do because you have to do it, not because you want to.

Stopping the run is something young players do to earn a big second contract or something mid-level players do to stay in the league. But once stars start making the big bucks, sometimes they start making business decisions and choosing not to mix it up in the trenches where they could get bloody.

When the 49ers went to the Super Bowl, most of their best defensive players were young and still on their first contract. I'm talking Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, Arik Armstead, DeForest Buckner and Dre Greenlaw. All of them were eager to prove themselves and do whatever the coaches asked. All of them set the standard for effort on the 49ers defense.

Now, all those players are older and richer and on their second contracts.

Bosa is making $35 million per season.

Buckner is gone, but his replacement Javon Hargrave is making $21 million per season.

Warner is making $19 million per season.

Armstead is making $17 million per season.

Charvarius Ward is making $13.5 million per season.

Greenlaw is making $8 million per season.

This is the core of the 49ers' defense, and it's got nothing left to prove. It's set for life. The 49ers need an infusion of youth and eagerness and hunger. Unfortunately, with the exception of Brock Purdy, the 49ers have gotten next to nothing from their last two draft classes.

The 49ers are getting old and complacent.

Published Nov 8, 2023

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.