The San Francisco 49ers will take the field Monday night against the Washington Commanders without one of their biggest defensive names. Head coach Kyle Shanahan ruled out defensive end Nick Bosa on Saturday, keeping the five-time Pro Bowler and former NFL Defensive Player of the Year sidelined after a calf injury suffered in San Francisco’s Week 2 win over the Miami Dolphins.
Shanahan said the team had not been expecting Bosa to be ready for this one, even though Bosa had sounded hopeful recently.
“We would have been pleasantly surprised if he could go this way, so I was pleasantly surprised that he was that optimistic last week, but we still would have been surprised,” Shanahan said. “This is kind of what we were expecting.
There was a chance. He wasn’t wrong when he said it, and I think he felt that way, but we were going to make sure it was fully good, and another week will help.”
The 49ers have managed just fine in Bosa’s absence from a results standpoint. San Francisco enters Monday undefeated at 5-0 and still fields one of the league’s stingiest defenses, sitting No. 6 overall.
The unit ranks fourth against the pass, giving up just under 200 yards per game through the air, and 11th against the run at 97.6 rushing yards allowed per game. The Niners are also surrendering only 18.6 points per game, good for No. 3 in the NFL.
The pass rush has become more of a committee effort without Bosa driving it alone. Ten different players have recorded at least a half sack, with Keion White leading the team with three.
San Francisco’s defense is being led this season by first-year coordinator Raheem Morris, who was fired as the Falcons’ head coach after last season. Morris took over after Robert Saleh left to become the Titans’ head coach.
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Still, Blough made clear there was plenty to clean up, and the focus landed quickly on the pre-snap mistakes that stalled what should have been a promising second-quarter scoring chance. For a team trying to build on a fast start, those kinds of penalties can turn a good possession into a wasted one, and the Commanders now have a familiar discipline issue sitting right in the middle of an offense that otherwise looked ready to hit another gear. [Read more 🡒]