For the San Francisco 49ers defense and its crown jewel Nick Bosa, 2024 has so far been a year of change.
The 49ers switched up defensive coordinators, firing Steve Wilks and promoting defensive passing game specialist Nick Sorensen while also bringing in former Los Angeles Chargers head coach Brandon Staley as assistant head coach/defense.
And the defensive front on which Bosa is the star has been significantly altered. The 49ers' previously longest-tenured player Arik Armstead was released after rejecting a pay cut, while the likes of Javon Kinlaw, Clelin Ferrell, Chase Young and Randy Gregory left in free agency.
San Francisco traded for Maliek Collins to replace defensive tackle Armstead, with Jordan Elliott also added to its ranks at that spot.
The marquee signing was veteran defensive end Leonard Floyd, who should provide a productive complement to Bosa at the opposite defensive end spot. Yetur Gross-Matos was also signed by the 49ers, with general manager John Lynch suggesting at the NFL's annual meetings that he could be a replacement for Charles Omenihu, whose inside-out versatility was instrumental in 2022 before he departed for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Bosa's changeup
For Bosa, the raft of new faces has meant a different routine during the 49ers' workout program. Bosa would usually not show up until the workouts are mandatory, but he obliged a request from head coach Kyle Shanahan to report for OTAs.
"Kyle stated why he felt that it would be good for me to be here and asked if I agreed. And I 100 percent did agree," said Bosa last week. "I think it’s just good to get around the new guys — we have a lot of new faces this year. So I want to be around."
Bosa would usually be in Florida training with elder brother Joey. However, with his sibling at Los Angeles Chargers OTAs ahead of Jim Harbaugh's first season as head coach, the stars aligned to give Bosa a change to get some early fine-tuning done.
Nick Bosa, Yetur Gross-Matos and Leonard Floyd in action at OTAS 💪 pic.twitter.com/eaSaZKPcaA
— 95.7 The Game (@957thegame) May 21, 2024
It is a stark contrast to last year, when Bosa missed all of the offseason workout program and training camp before the 49ers finally signed him to a record-breaking contract extension just a few days before their Week 1 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The league's highest-paid non-quarterback believes the greater level of preparation could be beneficial as he looks to return to his form of 2022, when he posted a league-leading 18.5 sacks, after registering only 10.5 last year.
"It’s a little less workload than I’m doing back home, so it’s good active recovery thing for me,” Bosa added. “And I’m getting football work in specifically, so that’s good.
“Last year was kind of tough getting thrown in Week 1 after a walkthrough. "That’s another reason I’m out here: to get some practice in."
Firmly divided attention
That chance to get an extended period of football work under his belt should put Bosa in a strong position to bounce back, and the combination of changes figures to give him an excellent chance to recapture a title he earned for the first time in 2022, when he was named Defensive Player of the Year.
Per FanDuel Sportsbook, Bosa is tied-third with T.J. Watt at +800 in the odds to win Defensive Player of the Year. Only Micah Parsons (+600) and Myles Garrett (+700) have shorter odds.
Eight players have won Defensive Player of the Year on multiple occasions, and it's essentially a list of all-time greats. Lawrence Taylor, J.J. Watt and Aaron Donald each won it three times. Joe Greene, Mike Singletary, Bruce Smith, Reggie White and Ray Lewis all won it twice. Donald was the last to achieve the feat, winning for the second time in 2018 and a third in 2020.
With extra time to prepare, Bosa should be ready to wreak havoc right off the bat, with the changes in personnel and coaching staff also likely to aid his cause.
With Floyd and Collins joining Bosa and Javon Hargrave on the starting defensive front, the 2019 second overall pick figures to regularly see opportunities to take advantage of one-on-ones.
Floyd's 39.5 sacks since 2020 are the 10th most in the NFL in that span and, while Collins may not have the same reputation as Armstead, he had a pressure rate of 11.1% last season, per Sports Info Solutions. That was superior to both 49ers starting defensive tackles.
Playing with Floyd, Collins and a Pro Bowler in Hargrave who has at least seven sacks in each of the last three seasons, Bosa can head into games knowing teams won't always be able to commit the level of attention to him that they have in previous years.
A better coaching fit
After a year with a coordinator in Wilks who Shanahan conceded after his firing was "not the right fit" for the 49ers, Bosa now gets a coordinator in Sorensen who has spent his entire coaching career in San Francisco's defensive scheme and has vowed to stick to what has brought success to the the D-Line and the defense as a whole in recent years.
"As far as changing things, we’re going to be aggressive, we’re going to do what we do and be an attacking defense," Sorensen said in his first press conference. "We always are looking to evolve in certain ways. I think there’s things throughout the league that you see and it’s like, will this work? Will it not? But as far as what we do, our bread and butter, we’re going to do that."
That bread and butter will be complemented by potential innovations from Staley, who is going to work closely with a talented and increasingly deep defensive back group.
Playing on a much-changed but still stacked front for a coach that knows the system inside-out and who will be supported by a former head coach with the acumen to make an underrated secondary even more difficult to attack, Bosa is in a magnificent spot to return to 2022 form and challenge for a second Defensive Player of the Year crown.
Bosa is already well on his way to a place in Canton. The mix of his change in routine and the significant changes made by the 49ers can help him follow in Donald's footsteps and take his place among the best to ever do it on the defensive side of the ball.
