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Why Run Defense is the 49ers' Biggest Issue Heading into Free Agency

If you can't stop the run in today's NFL, you can't compete with most of the best teams in the league.
Grant Cohn|
Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs (8) runs for 18 yards during the first quarter against the San Francisco 49ers at Lambeau Field.
Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs (8) runs for 18 yards during the first quarter against the San Francisco 49ers at Lambeau Field. | Mark Hoffman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers need to address both sides of the trenches this offseason. That's obvious. But which side of the trenches should they prioritize?

The 49ers offensive line certainly isn't a strength of the team, Aaron Banks is an impending free agent and Trent Williams missed seven games last season. And yet, the 49ers ran the ball well last season even without Christian McCaffrey.

The 49ers are a run-first team that creates big holes and creases for their ball carriers. Could they improve in pass protection? Absolutely.

But the 49ers run defense is simply awful. Last season, they gave up 1.5 yards before contact per attempt -- eighth worst in the NFL according to Pro Football Focus. Opposing running backs broke through to the second level of the 49ers' defense routinely.

If you can't stop the run in today's NFL, you can't compete with most of the best teams in the league. The 49ers must revamp their run defense immediately and turn it from a weakness to a strength.

And that means adding big defensive linemen who dominate against the run. Think Arik Armstead in his prime. Think Samson Ebukam a few seasons ago. They did so much of the dirty work and allowed others such as Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw to make plays.

When Robert Saleh first became the 49ers' defensive coordinator in 2017, the first thing he did was fix the run defense. Expect him to do the same this offseason.

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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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