NOTHING COULD BE NINER ...
Defense, run game have San Fran feeling Super again
J IMMY Garoppolo is no Joe Montana. Kyle Shanahan is not Bill Walsh. Jimmie Ward is not Ronnie Lott. Nick Bosa is not Charles Haley. Robert Saleh is not George Seifert. No one is Jerry Rice.
But here are the 5-0 49ers, the talk of the NFL, led by a playcalling whiz of a head coach, a shrewd GM with a plan, and a defensive front that is terrorizing quarterbacks.
These are not your father’s 49ers, whose explosive West Coast offense toyed with most defenses in the 1980s. Ironically, it is a team that Bill Parcells and Tom Coughlin would have loved to coach ... a team built on the notion that defense wins championships, and supplemented by a bruising rushing attack and efficient quarterback play.
The 49ers won their f ifth Super Bowl championship on the final Sunday of the 1995 season, and a sixth is suddenly no longer a pipe dream.
“I mean, we got five Super Bowls here,” defensive tackle DeForest Buckner said by phone. “A bunch of Hall of Famers. A culture that was built here and the guys who came before laying down a foundation of winning. We’re trying to bring this organization back to the top where it once was.”
Buckner, and defensive ends Arik Armstead and Bosa are all first-round draft picks. As is defensive end Dee Ford, who was acquired from the Chiefs by GM John Lynch via tradee in the offseason. Ass is backup defensive end Solomon Thomas. The 49ers have recorded 17 sacks: Bosa has four, Ford has 3. 5. Bosa has nine quarterback hits. Buckner has six. This is the West Coast version of Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora, Justin Tuck and Mathias Kiwanuka.
“When they line up across the board, there’s just not one individual you can home in on,” interim Redskins coach Bill Callahan said this week. It is no wonder why the 49ers rank No. 1 in fewest passing yards allowed per game (150.2), second in yards allowed (237.4), sixth in rushing yards allowed ( 887.2) and second in points allowed (12.8). “Relentless. Guys are just flying around making plays. Everybody’s just playing for each other. And we’re having fun doing it,” Buckner said. The 2018 49ers defense (seven turnovers, including just two interceptions) placed Saleh on the hot seat. These days they rally around their bald-headed, fist-pumping, vein-popping, storytelling defensive coordinator, whose mantra is, “Extreme violence.” “The energy is infectious,” Thomas said after the Niners last week forced Jared Goff to have Super Bowl LIII flashbacks. “It’s amazing to be out there. You feel like everybody has this swag to them. We go out there and play our game. We know how good we can be, so every time we have a chance to go out
there, we can set a new standard for how good we are.”
Bosa, the second-overall pick of the 2019 draft, is a chip off older brother Joey’s block. He is averaging a pressure every 9.35 snaps — tops in the league.
“He’s a technician,” Buckner said. “He’s really good with his hands. He’s really studying the guys that he’s going against, what he can do and what he shouldn’t do against them.”
Lynch raised eyebrows when he signed linebacker Kwon Alexander, who tore his ACL last October, to a four-year, $54 million deal to pair with Fred Warner following the release of troubled Reuben Foster.
“Honestly, he’s one of the top competitors I’ve ever played with,” Buckner said. “He’s a burst of energy each on every play. He’s all over the field. He plays with his hair on fire, man. That’s what you want in your linebackers. You see the ball, you’ll find Kwon near the ball anytime you turn on the film.”
Proud old-time 49ers are impressed.
“I t hink i t ’s kind of refreshing, what they’re doing, and ever since the Super Bowl l ast February, it’s OK to play defense again,” former 49ers Super Bowl champion Randy Cross told Serby Says.
In t he Niners’ past two games, the Browns and Rams converted one of 24 third- or fourth-down opportunities. You can almost hear Richard Sherman ranting, “When you try me with a sorry receiver like (fill in blank), that’s the result you gonna get!”
Buckner: “He’s still got it, obviously. He’s playing at a high level. And he’s just a great leader. He just wants each and every guy to play their best and he tries to pull it out of everybody.”
Shanahan was 10-22 entering the season. He lost Garoppolo to a torn ACL 13 months ago and worked wonders with backup QB Nick Mullens. He lost running back Jerick McKinnon (torn ACL) before the start of the 2018 season. Now he’s in the Coach of the Year conversation.
“Look at how good the Niners are doing, and look at the general state of the Falcons’ offense since he left,” Cross said.
The Niners whipped the Rams without their starting offensive tackles, too.
“He likes to talk about your mindset,” Buckner said. “It doesn’t matter that we’re 5-0. It doesn’t matter who we play, it’s all about our mindset and what we want to accomplish. He’s the type of coach you want to play for.”
George Kittle is the type of tight end you want to coach.
“I just think the kid is the epitome of an all-around complete tight end,” Mark Bavaro told Serby Says.
Former coach Jim Harbaugh nearly got the 49ers to three straight NFC Championship games, and one Super Bowl. Ray Lewis, Eli Maning and Richard Sherman, then with the Seahawks, each sent them home.
“We’re definitely contenders,” Buckner said. “We can’t let all the outside noise get to us.”
Much of the outside noise is coming from revitalized 49ers fans.
“The fan base is unreal,” Buckner said. “We got one of the best fan bases in the National Football League. So far I would say in all of our away games, it felt like a home game, to be honest. When you got other teams doing silent doubt in their own stadiums, it’s great to see.”
Bavaro and the Giants never steeled themselves for an NFC East bloodbath with the WalshMontana 49ers.
“We always figured that we would outphysical them,” Bavaro said.
The 49er on defense who took a backseat to nobody was rough-and-tumble safety Lott — especially after he was one of the poor souls Bavaro dragged for yards one night.
“He made a point of getting his revenge every time he could against me thereafter,” Bavaro said.
The Parcells-Bill Belichick Giants matched up well with those 49ers, but they considered them a formidable foe nevertheless.
“We had to perform at our peak level to beat the 49ers, there’s no question about that,” Bavaro said.
There’s no question about that with these 49ers, either.