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It’s been a similar subject for 24 hours and rolling. The San Francisco 49ers, who sit at 6-3, were not the only team to stand pat at the trade deadline.
The 6-2 Tampa Bay Bucs, the 5-2 Green Bay Packers, the 6-2 Los Angeles Rams, and the 5-3 Detroit Lions — all playoff teams — did
nothing. If anything, the 49ers did something by acquiring Keion White.
We’re asking whether that something was enough. Was a Jermaine Johnson or Bradley Chubb going to make a difference? We’ll never know, but that won’t prevent us from dealing in hypotheticals.
The 49ers are going to need to score to not only win, but “hide” their defense. This is the same defense that is 24th overall in efficiency, and it’s not as if they are being held down against the run or the pass. They’re 25th against the pass and 22nd against the run. The variance may be in their favor moving forward, but Chubb or Johnson weren’t putting this defense over the top.
That doesn’t mean the 49ers shouldn’t have made a move, regardless of whether it was at a pass rusher or another position. But it always comes down to price. And, in this specific instance, we can presume that whatever the asking price was for the players the team was interested in, it was too high for their liking.
