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Do the 49ers Have the Best Front Four in the NFC West?

When it's third and 7 with the game on the line and it's time to play your four best pass rushers, which NFC West has the best foursome?
Grant Cohn|
Do the 49ers Have the Best Front Four in the NFC West?
Do the 49ers Have the Best Front Four in the NFC West?

The 49ers probably have the deepest defensive line in the NFC West. But do they have the best four-man pass rush?

When it's third and 7 with the game on the line and it's time to play your four best pass rushers, which NFC West has the best foursome?

Let's break them down and rank them from worst to best.

4. Seattle Seahawks: Carlos Dunlap, Poona Ford, Aldon Smith and Kerry Hyder.

Dunlap is a good edge rusher -- he recorded six sacks in eight games with the Seahawks last season. But Poona Ford is a mere run defender, Aldon Smith is a decent interior rusher at this point in his career (if he can play), and Kerry Hyder has proven he does not produce when he's not playing for 49ers defensive line coach Kris Kocurek. This is by far the worst four-man rush in the NFC West.

3. 49ers: Nick Bosa, Javon Kinlaw, Arik Armstead, Samson Ebukam.

If Dee Ford and Nick Bosa were 100-percent healthy, this might be the best four-man front in the division. But Ford might never play again, and Bosa might be limited in 2021 after tearing his ACL last season. Samson Ebukam is a good athlete, but not a proven pass rusher. Ditto for Javon Kinlaw and Arik Armstead. The 49ers really need Bosa turn return and stay healthy.

2. Los Angeles Rams: Leonard Floyd, Aaron Donald, A'Shawn Robinson, Terrell Lewis.

Donald is the best defensive player in the NFL -- he recorded 13.5 sacks last season, a down year for him. His sidekick, Floyd, recorded 10 sacks. So they're an elite duo. Robinson and Lewis aren't good pass rushers, but Donald and Floyd more than make up for their deficiencies. Any front with Donald is nearly impossible to block.

1. Arizona Cardinals: Chandler Jones, J.J. Watt, Jordan Phillips, Markus Golden.

The Cardinals quietly revamped their defensive line the past two years. They signed Phillips last year, and Watt and Golden this year. Between those three and Jones, who opted out of 2020, all four Cardinals pass rushers have recorded at least 9.5 sacks in a season at one point in their careers. This might be the best four-man rush in the league when healthy.

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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.

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