SANTA CLARA — For a lot of the season, the state of the 49ers’ protection could possibly be summed up by two numbers. One diverse from week to week, seemingly solely rising bigger with each passing harm. The opposite remained persistently, persistently the identical.
The variety of All-Professional choices watching from the suite degree of Levi’s Stadium was the identical because it has been since Fred Warner joined Nick Bosa with season-ending accidents, however that different quantity, the one which was caught at zero for seven weeks, has begun to budge in a giant means the previous two weeks.
“We opened that can of worms, and now we’re just flying,” security Malik Mustapha mentioned after San Francisco’s win over the Carolina Panthers on Monday Evening Soccer. “We’re dialed in.”
The can of worms is the 49ers’ capability to take the ball away from their opponents, one thing the workforce had completed simply as soon as by way of interception by way of its first 10 video games. On an evening when their very own quarterback, Brock Purdy, tossed three earlier than halftime, it was the 2 hauled in by Ji’Ayir Brown that will likely be remembered from the 20-9 win.
“I always pride myself on being a ballhawk,” the third-year security mentioned. “It’s just been slow. Just keeping at it, keep going. Keep taking it game by game, waiting on your opportunity, I was able to capitalize.”
It solely took 12 weeks, however Brown didn’t have to attend lengthy for his alternative Monday night time. After San Francisco marched down the sector on a methodical scoring drive to open the sport, Carolina quarterback Bryce Younger had the Panthers on the verge of a landing to match.
Purdy’s first interception gave Carolina the ball in San Francisco territory, and Mustapha made a touchdown-saving sort out on the 1-yard line when Younger took off out of the pocket. One play later, Carolina walked away empty-handed after Brown got here down with Younger’s move meant for tight finish Mitchell Evans at the back of the top zone.
Linebacker Curtis Robinson, who made his first begin, known as Brown’s first interception “one of the bigger plays we’ve had this year, especially in the moment of the game that it came.” Cornerback Deommodore Lenoir mentioned the rapid response to Purdy’s decide was a “big statement” that modified the course of the sport.
“I was just so happy that he caught it, with just the lack of turnovers this year,” Lenoir mentioned.
Brown’s second decide of the night sealed the win with 6:33 left to play and the workforce main by 11 factors. It additionally gave the 49ers a second takeaway for the second straight week, the primary time they’ve strung collectively a number of video games in a row with a couple of turnover.
“We knew it’s something that we were going to hone in on,” Mustapha mentioned of the turnovers. “And now, you know, we got us a few more.”
Final week, Lenoir and Mustapha every grabbed one interception in a 41-22 win at Arizona, however the protection nonetheless allowed second-string quarterback Jacoby Brissett to set an NFL report with 47 completions for 452 yards passing. They held the Panthers to 230 complete yards, their finest defensive displaying since Week 1 in Seattle.
Coach Kyle Shanahan believes the group is simply starting to hit its stride.
“Ever since losing Fred and stuff, it’s been a bunch of young guys, guys who haven’t had their opps yet,” Shanahan mentioned. “And I think each week you can feel them in practice get better and better. It’s not always that result on Sunday or on Monday, but today it was.”
Accidents have pressured gamers into unfamiliar roles, together with Brown, who needed to heal from ankle surgical procedure throughout coaching camp after which win again his beginning job. San Francisco was already with out its main linebacker, Warner, and was additionally lacking his substitute, Tatum Bethune.
That created the chance for Robinson to make his first NFL begin in a full-circle second. The Stanford product suffered a season-ending knee harm final 12 months, based on Shanahan, at least 20 minutes after he had been informed he would get the prospect to begin the next week.
Nearly a 12 months later, Robinson made one solo sort out and assisted on two others in his first NFL begin.
“That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced; it’s still hard to talk about,” Robinson mentioned. “So to be able to come out healthy from this game and for it to have gone the way it went, I’m more grateful than I can even explain.”
