Nick Bosa Injury Provides Cardinals Massive Boost vs 49ers

The Arizona Cardinals aren't too upset they won't be facing Nick Bosa.

Dec 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa (97) during the game against the Detroit Lions at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images | USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect

ARIZONA — The Arizona Cardinals won't have to see San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa on Sunday.

Bosa is set to miss Week 3 — and beyond — after suffering a calf injury this week. He didn't practice either Wednesday or Thursday for San Francisco and is a candidate to land on injured reserve, according to NFL insider Ian Rapoport.

#49ers Pro Bowl DE Nick Bosa suffered a calf injury in practice this week and is expected to miss a few weeks, per me and @AdamSchefter.

He's out this week against the #AZCardinals and TBD on whether he lands on IR. pic.twitter.com/xcgOawutma

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) September 25, 2026

Through two games in 2026, the star defensive end has logged four tackles and one quarterback hit.

Bosa only played three games last season before tearing his ACL. Bosa is a five-time Pro Bowl player with All-Pro, Defensive Rookie and Defensive Player of the Year awards to his name. In seven seasons he's tallied 64.5 sacks.

Now, the Cardinals are able to move into Sunday with a bit less to worry about in terms of pass rush. Bosa, when healthy, still finds himself on the upper echelon of players who can get to the quarterback, and against a right side of Arizona's line that's struggled, he was set to potentially have his first big outing of 2026.

San Francisco's been bit by the injury bug this season, though Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur was still complimentary of their defense and coordinator Raheem Morris.

“Yes, it definitely has Raheem’s flavor on there for sure. It’s not, I would say the rinse-and-repeat niners of old in terms of their defense, (but) there are similarities," LaFleur told reporters this week.

"You still have (49ers Defensive Line Coach Kris) Kocurek, and you can tell how the defensive line is obviously coached, but there’s a lot of new faces there. Raheem’s put his spin on it. There are aspects of what they were doing in Atlanta that marry up to what they’re doing here, but you only have really two games of sample size obviously with them (but) they were getting after Miami pretty good. We call it ‘D-lead’ when there’s such a discrepancy between score--where’s that cutoff, what plays actually matter and what plays don’t.

"Are they being vanilla? Are they doing stuff that they don’t want to do, but they want to put it on tape? It happened kind of in the Rams game too, once it kind of got a little out of hand there in the fourth quarter. Not a huge sample size, but similarities to Atlanta and I feel like we got a good grasp.”

With Bosa out, game-planning for the 49ers gets just a little bit easier.