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Report: 49ers SS Malik Mustapha to Miss Start of Season with Torn ACL

What a sobering report.
Grant Cohn|
December 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; Detroit Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs (26) runs against San Francisco 49ers safety Malik Mustapha (6) during the fourth quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
December 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; Detroit Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs (26) runs against San Francisco 49ers safety Malik Mustapha (6) during the fourth quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images | Kyle Terada-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

SANTA CLARA -- This is not good.

49ers starting strong safety Malik Mustapha apparently tore his ACL in the 49ers' regular-season finale a few months ago and is not expected to be ready for the start of the upcoming regular season according to ESPN's Adam Schefter.

Which means the 49ers knew about Mustapha's injury before the draft, so at least they're not caught off guard. It's hard to fathom how the media didn't learn about this injury until now. You'd think the 49ers would have been more transparent. Perhaps they didn't want people to know about Mustapha's injury until they could draft a potential replacement while he's out.

And in Round 5 with pick No. 160, the 49ers took Kansas State safety Marques Sigle. Maybe he will fill in for Mustapha while he's out. Or, maybe the replacement will be third-year safety Ji'Ayir Brown, who played well as a rookie but struggled last season.

Mustapha was one of the 49ers' few bright spots on defense last season. He was by far their most violent hitter considering Dre Greenlaw missed almost the entire season with a torn Achilles. Mustapha seemed like a player who was poised to make a big leap in his second season.

Now, Mustapha most likely will miss OTAs, minicamp and training camp, which means it will take him a while to get into football shape even after he has been cleared to return to the field.

What a sobering report. I still don't understand how we're just learning about this.

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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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