The San Francisco 49ers didn’t replace rookie defensive tackle Gracen Halton. That tells you everything.
Gracen Halton broke his ankle with four minutes left in a 21-point game in Week 9. Two days later, the trade deadline came and went, and John Lynch didn’t bring in a single defensive tackle.
Now, that doesn’t mean they didn’t make calls. But when you lose a starter and you don’t replace him, that’s a decision. The 49ers are telling us something, Faithful. They trust what’s already in the building.
So let’s talk about who’s in that defensive tackle room.
First, understand what the 49ers lost. Halton came in as a 4th-round pick out of Oklahoma to be a penetrating 3-technique. Get up the field, make the quarterback uncomfortable. But what he really showed us how good he was against the run. Fifteen tackles, five tackles for loss, and two sacks in eight games, six of them starts. Sports Info Solutions had him leading every defensive tackle on the team in Points Saved. The rookie was living behind the line of scrimmage.
That’s the hole. Not a pass rusher. A run stopper.
And this defense has always been built on stopping the run first. Right now the 49ers are giving up 3.3 yards a carry, the best mark in the league. The Raiders ran for 24 yards on Sunday. That standard doesn’t drop because one guy went down.
Enter C.J. West. I’ll be honest, we went hard on West. He showed up to camp out of shape, got hurt, then tried to play his way into shape on a bad knee, and the performance wasn’t there early.
Then came the surgery and the injured reserve. But he’s had time to rest; he’s set to return to practice this week, and he was the starting nose tackle for a reason. If he’s right, he’s the run stopper this defense needs.
Then there’s the youth. James Thompson Jr., the 6-foot-6 undrafted rookie out of Illinois. Sebastian Valdez, another undrafted guy who already has a sack. These guys have to lift. This has to be a youth movement.
And that’s exactly why DeForest Buckner matters beyond the stat sheet. Yes, he’s another veteran who can penetrate, and he had four sacks in Indy before he got here. But those young guys now get to watch a guy with 75.5 career sacks show them what it looks like to be a pro every single day.
Losing Halton hurts. But this room can rally around it.
It’s West, Thompson and Valdez.. And the 49ers are riding with it.
Who steps up first, Faithful?
About the Author: Insidethe49
