49ers roster: Why Nick Bosa puts in a monstrous 2022 campaign
By Peter Panacy
Why Nick Bosa has career-best year for 49ers in 2022
Sure, it’ll be hard for Nick Bosa to best an already career-high effort set back in 2021, one in which he sniffed the single-season sack record and led the league in tackles for a loss with 21.
But, to earn Bosa more favorable one-on-one pass-rushing moments, one has to look at how San Francisco upgraded its defensive line during the offseason.
It’s likely Bosa’s pass-rushing EDGE partner from 2019, Dee Ford, winds up gone by the time training camp rolls around, probably a post-June 1 cap casualty, but Ford made minimal impact last year anyway, while defensive end Arden Key ended up ranking second on the 49ers defense with 6.5 sacks.
That was fine, but Key is gone now. And the Niners essentially replaced him with former Indianapolis Colts EDGE Kemoko Turay, who’d likely be a five- to seven-sack player if fully healthy.
Yet San Francisco’s 2022 draft addition of former USC EDGE Drake Jackson will hopefully be the long-term answer to Ford’s injury woes.
Even still, that’s not the reason to be excited about Bosa’s prowess entering 2021.
From Week 7 onward last year, the 49ers shifted defensive lineman Arik Armstead inside, a move defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans credited with a notable turnaround on the D-line that helped catapult the team into the playoffs.
Bosa already had five sacks up to that point. Yet that switch, combined with the additions of Turay and Jackson, should free up Bosa for much more favorable matchups.