All 49ers

49ers Safety Malik Mustapha Looks Jacked Heading into Year 2

He showed up to the 49ers' Local Pro Day this past week looking like he had put on five pounds of muscle.
Grant Cohn|
Oct 6, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers safety Malik Mustapha (6) after the game against the Arizona Cardinals at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
Oct 6, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers safety Malik Mustapha (6) after the game against the Arizona Cardinals at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images | Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images

In this story:

San Francisco 49ers

Every offseason, one second-year player comes back to the team looking noticeably bigger and stronger than they were as a rookie.

This year, that player is Malik Mustapha.

He showed up to the 49ers' Local Pro Day this past week looking like he had put on five pounds of muscle. He looked like a five-year veteran with six percent body fat, not a fourth-round pick who was a rookie just a few months ago.

Keep in mind, Mustapha didn't have to come to the local Pro Day. It was a 45-minute tryout for college football players who are from the Bay Area or play football in the Bay Area and probably won't get drafted.

Mustapha came anyway. And by doing so, he sent the message that he is obsessed with football and extremely serious about his craft. I remember Brandon Aiyuk went to the 49ers' local Pro Day just before he had a major breakout season.

It's like Aiyuk and Mustapha wanted coaches and players and scouts and journalists to see all the work they'd been putting in. To see the transformation from promising young player to team leader.

Last year, Mustapha started 12 games and flashed big-time potential. He's only 5'10", but he's extremely muscular and fast and he hits hard. Still, he looked like he had a rookie's body when he was on the field. And he infamously bounced off Patrick Mahomes early in the season when Mahomes ran him over during a touchdown run.

Mustapha doesn't look like he'll get run over any more.

Expect a major leap from him in 2025.

Read more

Published
Grant Cohn
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.

Share on XFollow grantcohn
Home/News