4 changes coming to the 49ers now that Nick Bosa is out for the season

The San Francisco 49ers are going to struggle to overcome the Nick Bosa injury. Historically, when he misses time, the 49ers' defense struggles; if they do not want that to be the case, they need a team effort to step up.

Mykel Williams

The 49ers were getting the benefit of moving Williams around into advantageous positions. He would defend the run on the edge, but slide inside to face better pass rush situations. However, that may not be the case without Bosa, as the team will be weaker on the outside.

This was already shown in the first game without Bosa. Williams entered the season with 44 snaps as an interior rusher and 41 outside the tackle, per Pro Football Focus.

Last week, he had 13 snaps as an interior rusher, and he had 30 snaps outside the tackle. They are going to need him to do more damage in his true role now.

Bryce Huff

Huff was added to be a situational pass rusher, but the team may need him to pitch in a bit more on run defense snaps. He played a season-high eight run defense snaps against Arizona in Week 3. To be fair, he also had a season-high in pass rush snaps.

However, Huff playing more is tied to losing Bosa, and if Arizona had committed to the ground game, it may have led to Huff seeing even more run defense snaps. He currently has 68 pass rush snaps and 21 run defense. We will see how that changes this week.

Yetur Gross-Matos

The 49ers have had a comfortable role of easing Gross-Matos in as he has been dealing with an injury since the summer. They had the depth along the line to play him minimally, and he almost only played obvious pass rush downs when they wanted a faster rusher to slide inside.

Through two weeks, Gross-Matos had one snap aligned against a tackle. He only played obvious pass downs, and he only rushed on the inside. Gross-Matos played 10 snaps outside the tackle this week, and he also played a season-high three snaps against the run. One of Huff or Gross-Matos will need to play more against the run next week, too.

Sam Okuayinonu

The 49ers have already been seeing Okuayinonu play more, but it took a massive leap once Bosa left. Okuayinonu played 28.8% of the snaps in Week 1, then 39.4% the following week. However, he played 63.6% with Bosa out against Arizona. This was the second-highest rate of his career.

He has 43 run defense snaps and 41 pass rush snaps, and last week he played 20 snaps against the run. With Gross-Matos and Huff being situational players, we are going to see Okuayinonu above 50% for the rest of the season. Can he handle that workload?

Mykel Williams

Bryce Huff

Yetur Gross-Matos

Sam Okuayinonu

Read More