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Why the 49ers Prioritized Improving their Run Defense this Offseason

If you can't stop the run in today's NFL, your defense is in trouble. Good thing the 49ers understand that.
Grant Cohn|
May 9, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan, right, confers with defensive coordinator Robert Saleh during the teamís rookie minicamp. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
May 9, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan, right, confers with defensive coordinator Robert Saleh during the teamís rookie minicamp. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

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When the 49ers overhauled their defense this offseason, they could have focused on improving their pass rush.

Instead, they prioritized run defense. Each of their first five draft picks was an excellent run defender in college. After the draft, defensive coordinator Robert Saleh said he tries to stay two years ahead of NFL offenses. I guess he thinks the run game is on the rise.

Pro Football Focus agrees.

"Of the top 10 offenses in EPA per play last season, seven also ranked in the top 10 in rushing EPA per play," writes PFF's Bradley Locker. "In other words, for teams to establish effective, efficient offenses, the run needs to be at least a prominent feature — if not a driver. Recent gameplay and analysis have demonstrated that passing helps generate chunk plays and score points, but players and coaches reemphasized just how crucial the run is for fielding a high-flying offense.

"In 2024, teams averaged a 30.13% rushing success rate, which was up from 28.84% the year before. Moreover, players amassed a gaudy 1,513 total explosive runs (rushes of 15-plus yards), much more than the 1,437 in 2023.

"Essentially, teams are leaning back into the run to fuel efficient offenses because the ground game can now produce big plays through elite runners."

The resurgence of the run game in the NFL is a product of two things: One, defenses are using two-deep safeties more frequently and daring offenses to run the ball. And two, quarterbacks are becoming more mobile, which means lots of offenses now have two rushing threats in their backfield rather than just one.

If you can't stop the run in today's NFL, your defense is in trouble. Good thing the 49ers understand that.

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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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