Fred Warner trending toward surpassing 49ers Hall of Fame legend

If you've been a San Francisco 49ers fan for long enough, you can probably remember the good to great linebackers that have worn the red and gold throughout their careers.

From legends like Dave Wilcox and "Hacksaw" Jim Reynolds, to more recent luminaries like Gary Plummer, Ken Norton Jr, and Julian Peterson, some of the Niners' best teams have contained an intimidating presence in the front seven that has set the tone for the defense as a whole.

For fans of a 2000s vintage such as myself, the gold standard can be the one and only Patrick Willis. Drafted 11th overall in 2007 (and it honestly seems insane there was even a debate over whether to pick him or defensive end Adam Carriker, who went on to do a whole lot of nothing with the Los Angeles Rams and later Washington in an undistinguished career), Willis started from the off, playing 112 games in an eight-year career that was sadly cut short by a persistent toe injury.

With almost a thousand tackles, 20.5 sacks, eight interceptions and 16 forced fumbles notched up in his career, Willis was a fearless leader on defense, winning Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2007 and being named to the Pro Bowl seven times during his career. He was later the beating heart of then-head coach Jim Harbaugh's 49ers, who came oh-so-close to ending the team's championship drought, all the while making multiple highlight plays that still live in the memory today.

It therefore came as no surprise when he was voted into the Professional Football Hall of Fame in 2024, and he remains one of the greatest Niners of all time.

So, given all that, how could San Francisco possibly have someone even better on their current roster?

Enter Fred Warner.

Warner joined the team with much less fanfare than Willis, picked up in the third round of head coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch's second draft in 2018. Warner did, however, like Willis, ascend quickly, and has started since the first game of his rookie season. He's also proven to be made of iron, missing (so far at least!) one game in his entire seven-season career.

Stats-wise, he's well and truly on pace with Willis at the age of 27, a year short of Willis' full career, Warner has made an impact in almost every game, testified to by his incredible stat line of almost 800 tackles, 10 sacks, 10(!) interceptions and 14 forced fumbles.

As the team has rebuilt "brick by brick" under the Lynch/Shanahan axis, Warner's ascension into the pantheon of greatest NFL linebackers has accelerated the trajectory of the defense and the team as a whole. It's probably not a coincidence that the likes of Dre Greenlaw and Azeez Al-Shaair have gone on to have solid-to-good NFL careers after learning from and playing next to Warner, not unlike NaVorro Bowman's rapid development once paired with Willis.

Warner is a truly fantastic player, respected across the NFL,as evidenced by the fact he was recently voted No. 11 in the Top 100 NFL Players 2024 list, compiled by his peers in the league. The 49ers think so, too, as he was one of the first Lynch/Shanahan draftees to receive an extension, signing a huge five-year, $95 million deal in 2021.

The big question is, who's better?

And the truth is, the answer's not that easy.

The NFL game has changed in the decade between Willis' retirement and where we are today. While Willis was an unbelievable athlete and excellent in coverage, he was not only playing in a different scheme (a 3-4 defense favored by then-defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, as opposed to the 49ers' ubiquitous 4-3 Cover 3 based defense under Shanahan's various defensive coordinators) with different responsibilities but also a different era, as the NFL's offenses have become more expansive and therefore require linebackers to do more in coverage, particularly against the newer wave of athletes at the tight end position.

That likely explains the discrepancy in coverage numbers, particularly interceptions, but Warner is also part of the "new breed" of NFL linebackers: smaller, faster, more agile, and capable of running down players in coverage. Willis was a tremendous athlete. You'll all recall him chasing down Sean Morey of the Cardinals, as The Athletic recently covered but was something of a fish out of water in that era, being one of the few athletes at the position that was allowed to be more than a "thumper" and pure run stopper.

Possibly with a bias towards the current team and their continued success level, rather than the crash and burn of the Harbaugh years, this writer would probably side with Warner

But, it's a nice problem to have, isn't it?

And hey, even Willis has gone on record calling Warner the best player in the NFL.

The truth is, without somehow transplanting Willis into the modern era, it's tough to compare the two directly, but there's no doubt that Warner is a tremendous player and frequently the best player on the 49ers defense, despite several other top-class players playing alongside him. If he continues this level of play up for a few more years, he seems a cert to join Willis in the Hall of Fame, and we can happily converse over who was better for evermore.

Perhaps the only way we could've truly known is if they'd have played together.

What a sight that would've been, eh?

Who do you think was better?

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