It’s stated so typically round soccer that it’s change into trite:
Video games are gained and misplaced within the trenches.
And whereas I’m not right here to knock the massive males, I’ve a unique spin on issues, at the least in relation to the defensive facet of the ball.
I’ve a saying that I’ve used so typically that it elicits eye rolls from those that discuss soccer with me most. But not one has been in a position to disprove my concept:
Safeties are future.
And the 49ers’ future has modified for the higher in current weeks.
It has been a protracted, winding, and sometimes irritating path to search out the suitable two guys to placed on the sphere with no need to carry your breath on each snap. But when the final three weeks are any indication, the search is over.
The mix of Ji’Ayir Brown and Malik Mustapha hasn’t simply been competent as of late; they’ve been marvelous.
Meet the Bay’s new Bash Brothers.
Within the Nationwide Soccer League, the again finish of the protection is normally the place desires go to die. It’s the place the place a blown protection turns a three-point lead right into a heartbreaking loss, or the place a missed sort out turns a third-and-long into a primary down that drains the clock. For the higher a part of this season, the Niners have been looking for solutions again there, shuffling our bodies and hoping for chemistry and competency that hadn’t materialized.
However after a couple of rusty weeks following offseason ACL surgical procedure, Mustapha is trying like his 2024 self once more. And Brown, after beginning the season on the bench, stepping up as a particular groups ace, after which rotating right into a sub-package position, has taken the opposite beginning security spot and has proven optimistic, incremental development week after week.
Brown, intensely studious and each self-confident and self-critical, not seems like somebody who’s pondering by 4 completely different prospects earlier than performing on the sphere. He’s nonetheless making good performs, however he’s doing so decisively.
Defensive coordinator Robert Saleh calls it the distinction between “fit ball” and soccer.
“He’s improving big time with regard to understanding the game and being more of a football player,” Saleh stated final week.
And collectively, they’ve stabilized a protection that had each cause to show into one of many NFL’s worst items after their incessant run of vital accidents.
Now, let’s sprinkle within the requisite grain of salt right here. Fellow cynics would have a look at the schedule and level out the plain: it’s straightforward to be a security if you’re enjoying towards Bryce Younger and Shedeur Sanders, two quarterbacks who can not problem you deep. When you could have two robust safeties, like Mustapha and Brown, who wish to get into the field and thump — two safeties whose knocks are that they’re questionable in deep protection — you don’t have to fret a lot about being burned excessive. (You possibly can’t inform me that common supervisor John Lynch, a Corridor of Fame security and world-class hitter, hasn’t inserted some opinion into the matter of who to play and appears decided to construct a secondary in his personal picture.)
So sure, it’s totally potential that that is only a optimistic blip, a mirage created by inept opposition.
However what if it isn’t?
What if this pairing is definitely the reality? As a result of if you activate the tape, you aren’t simply seeing guys routinely getting away with unhealthy play due to unhealthy quarterbacks (although that has proven up a couple of times). You might be seeing violence. You might be seeing Brown and Mustapha smack ball carriers with a ferocity that units a tone for the complete unit — a necessity within the post-Fred Warner world.
Extra importantly, you might be seeing versatility. The inspiration of recent defensive scheming is disguise, and for the primary time in a very long time, the Niners have a duo that seems interchangeable. They’re doing an efficient sufficient job in single-high seems. They’re locking it down — and crashing down like madmen — in two-high protection. They’re shifting items on a chessboard that really match the squares they’re standing on.
It’s not excellent, however it’ll greater than do in the intervening time.
And the time being ought to now final effectively into January.
It’ll nonetheless be honest to wonder if this “two hammers” strategy will work towards the high-flying offenses of the NFC within the closing two weeks of the common season and the playoffs. The Rams’ loss in Week 10 was hardly a ringing endorsement that enjoying two safeties whose main intuition is to come back downhill gained’t get you torched excessive.
But, right here we’re. The outcomes are such that even the skeptics — myself included — must at the least pause and reward. Brown and Mustapha have stabilized the ship. They’ve turned a place of volatility into considered one of confidence, and maybe even energy.
Simply reaching this level of consistency heading into the bye week is very large. Within the NFL, you don’t must be excellent in September or October. However you completely want to determine who you might be by December. You possibly can’t be heading into the playoffs questioning who the lads that outline your protection — the final line of protection in all issues — are.
The Niners’ season could be outlined by hardship, however they nonetheless have a whole lot of issues going for them. And for the primary time all 12 months, they may have discovered their id on the again finish of their protection.
And that might convey large issues within the weeks to come back, as a result of, as I’ll say one final time: safeties are future.
