Malik Mustapha is trying to win 49ers game vs. Cowboys all by himself

The San Francisco 49ers defense would not be a particularly sea-worthy ship right now.

Close to halfway through the Sunday Night Football game against the Dallas Cowboys, the Niners defense, save for good performances by stars like Nick Bosa and Fred Warner, has largely shown the same poor play lacking in intensity that it has fairly consistently through the opening eight weeks of the NFL season.

Missed tackles, poor run fits, and being 'beaten to the punch', to use the old head coach Bill Walsh parlance, have threatened to overwhelm the team throughout the opening quarters of Sunday's game.

Enter rookie safety Malik Mustapha.

Following last week's good showing in an otherwise execrable performance by his unit in the loss to the Kansas City Chiefs (at times, he seemed like the only player playing the game on the field, rather than the "Super Bowl rematch" occasion), Mustapha produced two plays, back-to-back, on a threatening Dallas drive, that might just have stopped the momentum flowing against San Francisco.

First, he made an excellent play on a well-thrown pass by quarterback Dak Prescott, to break up what looked a certain touchdown to tight end Brevyn Spann-Ford, knocking the ball out of his hands on seemingly two occasions, before making a tough, explosive fit on third down to punch back Jake Ferguson.

The latter play felt particularly consequential, as it finally put an exclamation point on a drive-ending play, and knocked back a player who had given the 49ers a physical challenge on multiple plays, including a key third down on the Cowboys' touchdown drive.

The hit even forced a fumble, although the Niners were unable to recover, largely because the ball took an unlucky ricochet off Renardo Green's helmet and bounced back to Ferguson.

It forced Dallas to settle for a field goal, and turned what could've been a large early deficit for the 49ers into a one-score gap that the team was able to reduce with a responding field-goal drive.

There's a long way to go in this game, and a lot more to clean up on defense for the team, but with a number of much higher reputed (and paid!) players failing to perform to standard, it's good to see a rookie playing with confidence and reckless abandon on the back end of the defense.

If only he could imbibe the rest of the team with the same intensity.

Regardless, the future looks bright for Mustapha, who's trajectory already looks like a potential pillar at the safety position for San Francisco moving forward.

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