San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Sunday’s game: 49ers’ way becomes Washington’s way
Their defensive line loaded with firstround picks includes a premier pass rusher from Ohio State drafted No. 2 overall. No, not team.
The 49ers weren’t alone in making massive investments on the defensive front. They meet a Washington team Sunday in Arizona that has a similar blueprint to what led the 49ers to last season’s Super Bowl.
Ron Rivera, Washington’s firstyear coach, had the 49ers in mind when he took just one job interview in the offseason and walked away from interest expressed by the Giants, Cowboys and Browns.
“After seeing what the 49ers had done in the last couple years, when I was going through my interview process that was one of the things that truly intrigued me was the potential to build that ( defensive) front and mimic what the 49ers had done,” Rivera said. “We want to create that type of energy up front. Because when you’re attacking the quarterback and getting him off his spot, you have an opportunity to impact the game. Which ( the 49ers) do.”
Correction: Which the 49ers did.
Injuries to defensive ends Dee Ford and Nick Bosa — last year’s No. 2 pick from Ohio State — have left the 49ers tied for 21st in sacks ( 21) and on pace for their fewest in a full season since sacks became an official stat in 1982.
Meanwhile, their opponent Sunday offers a reminder of what they had.
Washington ( 57), like last season’s 49ers, counts four firstround picks among its top four defensive linemen: pass rushers Chase Young ( No. 2 overall this year) and Montez Sweat ( No. 26 last year) and tackles Da’Ron Payne ( No. 13, 2018) and Jonathan Allen ( No. 17, 2017).
The results for the teams have been strikingly similar. Washington ranks fourth in sacks ( 32) this season, on pace for 48, the 49ers’ total in 2019 when they ranked fifth in the league.
Niners tackle Trent Williams, who spent the previous 10 seasons with Washington, said the more aggressive 43 scheme introduced by Rivera helped his former team. And it didn’t hurt to add Young ( 4.5 sacks), a player who hit the “gene pool lottery,” Williams said.
The defensive line will be “the strong point of the team for years to come,” Williams said. “Those guys are young. They’re quite healthy.”
And the 49ers have been quite injured. Bosa and Ford are out for the season after a combined three games. The 49ers traded AllPro defensive tackle DeForest Buckner in the offseason and his replacement, promising firstround rookie Javon Kinlaw, is understandably not fully filling the void.
Defensive coordinator Robert Saleh acknowledges last year’s defensive line dominance is gone. On Thursday, as he discussed the importance of quarterback pressure, he mentioned stellar groups that included the 2020 Rams, the “Legion of Boom” Seahawks and, he said, “last year with our Dline.”
The lone holdover from last year’s starting defensive line Sunday for the 49ers will be Arik Armstead, who signed a fiveyear, $ 85 million extension in March after a careerbest 10 sacks last season.
This season, however, Armstead hasn’t benefited from double teams on teammates and has just 1.5 sacks — none in seven games.
Armstead’s sack production “comes with opportunity,” Saleh said. “You’ve got to win your oneonones, but he’s also not getting as many oneonone opportunities as he had a year ago. And when teams double him, other people have to step up and help around him.”
The 49ers ( 57) will face familiar face Alex Smith, who will quarterback Washington in a game his team must win Sunday to remain in the playoff conversation.
Smith has made a remarkable comeback at age 36 from an injury that required 17 operations and threatened his limb and life. He is 31 since returning as the starter, but he’s no longer the scrambler he was before his injury. He has 2,604 career rushing yards, but only 3 yards on nine attempts this season.
Can the 49ers take advantage of his lack of mobility?
Their defensive line, like Smith, isn’t the same.
“He’s not going to run like he used to,” Rivera said. “That part of his game’s not there. But everything else is.”