SANTA CLARA — Each sack by Nick Bosa gains him more and more recognition. That’s how the NFL works. That’s what everyone wants to see in his return from a 2020 knee injury.
His influence goes beyond that for the 49ers.
Bosa is playing 70 percent of the defensive snaps because, rather than just deploy him as a relentless pass rusher, the 49ers need him to stop the run. He needs that, too.
“I love the run game, because it just gets me going in the game,” Bosa said Thursday. “If the run is away from me, the whole first quarter I get antsy and feel I’m not part of the game. So I like when I’m involved in the run game, taking on blocks and being physical.
“I think me and Arik (Armstead) are the best edge-setters in the game. I definitely take pride in that.”
As he should. And as should Armstead, whose versatility to seal off the edge opposite of Bosa is a key reason why the 49ers opted to retain him in March 2020 while trading away interior star DeForest Buckner, who returns to Levi’s Stadium on Sunday night with the Indianapolis Colts.
The Colts (2-4) tout one of the NFL’s rising rushers in Jonathan Taylor, who ran for 1,169 yards last year as a rookie and has 472 yards this season.
Bosa? He has eight tackles for loss and 19 overall tackles, the fifth-highest total on the 49ers. Armstead has 10 tackles, one for loss, as he is playing 69 percent of the defensive snaps.
This being a pass-oriented league, Bosa’s adaptive pass rush is what helped him win NFL defensive rookie of the year honors in 2019, and his five sacks through five games this year are the most since Bryant Young with six in 2005.
Bosa said he and Armstead, along with veteran pass rusher Dee Ford, have taken it upon themselves to fill the leadership “dropoff” that was created among their unit by Buckner’s 2020 trade.
With the pass rush tied to the secondary’s coverage, Bosa also makes sure to have a connection with that unit, including a custom handshake with cornerback Emmanuel Moseley dating back to 2019.
“I think I’m the only one in the defensive room that has a handshake with him,” Moseley said. “… One day in practice, I was dapping everybody up, and he said, ‘We don’t have one.’ So then we did one and it’s stuck since then.”
“It’s not that intricate,” Bosa said of their handshake.
Simplicity also defines Bosa’s approach to games. He says that studying “overboard” is not great and instead relies on his instincts when needed.
“When he lines up on Sunday, he knows exactly how a guy will block him and what moves he can make,” defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans said.
“The thing about Bosa, if something changes, he’s such an instinctive player,” Ryans added. “And he’s very quick to change and react. He’s a very gifted athlete but also very smart.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com