The San Francisco 49ers’ defense goes as far as Nick Bosa does. Without one of their franchise cornerstones on the field, a depleted defensive line struggled to compete.
No team had a lower sack percentage than the 49ers, which was 1.1% lower than the 31st-place team. The 49ers had six fewer sacks than the 31st-place team, despite facing the pass at the 10th-highest rate in the league. Bringing down the quarterback wasn’t the only issue. Only the Panthers had a lower pressure percentage.
Bosa will
be coming off a torn ACL heading into his 29-year-old season. Nobody questions whether Bosa will be impactful. The magnitude is what is fair to consider. After all, we are talking about one of the very best pass rushers in the NFL.
According to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, Bosa’s contract is another factor to consider:
Bosa has a big cap hit in 2027, at nearly $55 million. And yes, he’s coming off a torn ACL and will turn 30 that November. Next year is also the first year of the deal done in the summer of 2023 that won’t be fully guaranteed from the outset — he has less than $1 million guaranteed for 2027.
So all those points lead to a decision needing to be made. So, really, what this boils down to is how good Bosa is in 2026.
Breer doesn’t believe Bosa is going anywhere, as long as his production doesn’t fall off a cliff:
“If [Bosa] rings up a dozen sacks, and offenses have to double him and slide protection to him, the cash he’s due in 2027 ($33.18 million) is reasonable relative to where the market at his position has gone, and cap numbers can be managed.”
Bosa is now the 8th-highest-paid edge rusher in the NFL on an annual basis. If he has the kind of season he’s capable of, Bosa could very well want to be compensated like he’s one of the top edge rushers in the NFL one last time.
There’s the other side of the coin, where Bosa sustains another injury:
“If he gets hurt or slips, then we’re talking about another situation altogether. I would say that I have no doubt that Bosa’s going to do all he can to get back to being the player he has been for most of his seven years in the NFL.”
Another Bosa injury might lead to the 49ers making another splash move around the trade deadline. Many wanted them to do that last season, but the defense had too many holes for one player to fix. Unless that player was a superstar.
The depth is better, but that depth revolves around Bosa. We saw what happened last year when everybody was asked to do more. It did not work out well. The gravity that Bosa brings to the table is something you can’t quantify, making it tough to envision the 49ers doing anything else besides working out something to keep Bosa around this time next year.
