The 49ers chose not to bring in a replacement for Gracen Halton, and that decision says plenty about how they see the defensive tackle room they already have.
Halton went down with a broken ankle late in Week 9, leaving the game with four minutes left in a 21-point lead. Two days later, the trade deadline passed, and John Lynch never added a defensive tackle. The team may have made calls, but in the end it stood pat.
That leaves the burden on the players already in the building, because Halton wasn’t just another body. The rookie out of Oklahoma was drafted in the fourth round to be a penetrating 3-technique, the kind of lineman who gets upfield and disrupts quarterbacks.
But his most valuable work showed up against the run. In eight games, including six starts, he posted 15 tackles, five tackles for loss and two sacks.
Sports Info Solutions had him leading every defensive tackle on the team in Points Saved. He was spending a lot of time in the backfield.
What the 49ers lost, then, is not primarily a pass rusher. It’s a run defender.
That matters because this defense is built on stopping the run first, and the numbers back it up. The 49ers are allowing 3.3 yards per carry, best in the league, and the Raiders managed just 24 rushing yards on Sunday. That level of production doesn’t get reset because one player goes down.
Now the attention shifts to C.J. West.
He’s the obvious candidate to help absorb the loss, even if the road here wasn’t smooth. He showed up to camp out of shape, got hurt, and then tried to work his way into shape on a bad knee before the results caught up with him.
Surgery and injured reserve followed. But he’s had time to recover, he’s set to return to practice this week, and he was the starting nose tackle for a reason.
If he’s right, he can fill the run-stopping role this defense needs.
The other part of the answer is youth. James Thompson Jr., the 6-foot-6 undrafted rookie from Illinois, and Sebastian Valdez, another undrafted player who already has a sack, are going to have to take on more. This has to become a youth movement.
And that’s where DeForest Buckner’s presence matters in a way that goes beyond the box score. He’s another veteran who can penetrate, and he had four sacks in Indy before he got here.
But his value now is also in the daily example he sets. Those young linemen get to see a player with 75.5 career sacks show them how a pro operates every day.
In Other News...
Cowboys Face A Brutal Test Against A 49ers Team Built For This
The old 49ers-Cowboys rivalry still carries plenty of weight, and this latest meeting feels like another one of those games that says a lot about where both teams stand. San Francisco has spent the season looking like a club built to matter in January, sitting in strong shape in the NFC West and leaning on a roster that has been defined by balance, star power and a quarterback who has settled in nicely around George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey.
Dallas, meanwhile, remains the more volatile side of the matchup, good enough to make every week interesting but inconsistent enough to keep the pressure on. Dak Prescott gives the Cowboys a chance in almost any game, but against a 49ers team with so much history and so much current stability, the margin for error feels especially small, and the familiar postseason questions around these franchises are already hovering over this one. [Read more 🡒]
49ers Are Chasing Something Bigger Than Another Top Five Ranking
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What makes the discussion around San Francisco more interesting is that the question is no longer just whether it belongs among the best teams in football. The bigger issue is what all of this means for January, when seeding matters far more than style points or poll position. The 49ers are still being viewed as a team with a real path to the conference's top playoff spot, and that is the kind of backdrop that turns every regular-season win into something more than just another entry in the standings. [Read more 🡒]
49ers Deadline Report Shows How Worried They Were At Tight End
The 49ers spent the trade deadline looking for help in a few places, but their interest in tight end stood out as a sign of just how thin things had gotten behind George Kittle. Injuries have left San Francisco with little margin for error at the position, and the team was clearly weighing whether it needed to add another pass-catching option to stabilize the offense.
Instead, the 49ers came away with Keenan Allen, a move that should give the receiving corps a boost while they wait for other injured players to work back. Evan Engram never became the answer, and his limited role in Denver only added to the intrigue around what San Francisco was trying to solve before the deadline passed. [Read more 🡒]