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NFL.com: Malik Mustapha is the 49ers' Most Underappreciated Player

You could argue he was the 49ers' second-best defensive back last season behind cornerback Deommodore Lenoir.
Grant Cohn|
Oct 10, 2024; Seattle, Washington, USA; San Francisco 49ers safety Malik Mustapha (6) returns an interception against the Seattle Seahawks during the first quarter at Lumen Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images
Oct 10, 2024; Seattle, Washington, USA; San Francisco 49ers safety Malik Mustapha (6) returns an interception against the Seattle Seahawks during the first quarter at Lumen Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images | Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers have a core of eight high-profile veteran players who overshadow the rest of the team.

The core is outstanding when healthy, don't get me wrong, but there are other players on the team who are underappreciated. And their most underappreciated player accoding to NFL.com is safety Malik Mustapha.

"Having just signed Brock Purdy to a quarterback megadeal, San Francisco is entering a new phase in team-building," writes NFL.com's Gennaro Filice. "Nailing draft picks is always important, obviously, but it becomes essential when you’re committing such a large chunk of the salary cap to one man. In order to balance the books, you need to roster viable starters on cost-controlled rookie contracts.

"The 49ers found one of those in the fourth round of last year’s draft, with Mustapha immediately making his presence felt as a violent playmaker. Unfortunately, as if the Niners didn’t suffer enough of an injury-riddled Super Bowl hangover last year, we recently discovered that Mustapha hurt his ACL in San Francisco’s season finale. This puts his availability for the start of the 2025 campaign in question.

"He still gets shine here, though, because I self-consciously feel like I personally underappreciated the safety by completely omitting him from last season’s rookie rankings. This dude’s punishing play style is too endearing to go unrecognized!"

Not only is Mustapha a punishing hitter, he's an explosive runner who covers lots of ground. You could argue he was the 49ers' second-best defensive back last season behind cornerback Deommodore Lenoir.

Mustapha's latest ACL tear was his second, so he'll have to show that he hasn't lost any quickness or speed. But if he hasn't, his future will be extremely bright.

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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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