49ers studs and duds from strong Week 8 victory vs. Rams

Stud: Nick Bosa

Don’t let the relatively lean stats of only a few tackles and one sack fool you, EDGE Nick Bosa had a monstrous game, and did enough to keep his campaign for Defensive Player of the Year intact.

The thing about this game is that Bosa didn’t exactly have a lot of opportunities to put stats on the board. The Rams adopted a screen-based passing game that didn’t allow sack opportunities, and they’re such a poor running team that they all but gave up on trying to do that very quickly.

But, when the 49ers took the lead in the second half, the Rams had to abandon the screens and pass down the field more, allowing Bosa more of a chance to make an impact.

It’s fair to say he did.

Bosa had a sack and almost had a second, but linebacker Fred Warner was able to beat him to the punch on a linebacker blitz. The Rams failed to drive down the field at all with the defense being able to tee off on the blocking, and Bosa created a lot of pressure consistently on the Los Angeles offense.

Bosa will have better games to get bigger stat lines, but he led the defensive line in winning the trenches for San Francisco.