I’ll always try and keep this column a safe space from the shrieking and hysteria. That feels like a particularly difficult job today, after the announcement of Nick Bosa’s torn ACL. It’s been a few hours at the time of writing since it was announced (I wanted to take some time to consider my response), and yet all around the Internet, the only reaction seems to be anger, despair, and most 49ers content creators throwing the season into the garbage.

It won’t surprise you to know, if you’ve read anything I’ve written so far, that I’m not on board with this. Call me a happy-clapper if you must, but I’d prefer to focus on those who are on the field. At the end of the day, the team just won a third close game in three weeks, finding a way to win in difficult circumstances, and they’re 3-0, with a 2-0 record in the division. They’ve done that without their starting quarterback and most of their offensive playmakers. This team may not be winning with style, but it does seem to have some big things: youth, grit, and resilience.

Nick Bosa’s In-House Replacements are Obvious

How that pertains to Bosa, well, that’s a little different. Obviously, any time you lose an All-Pro and borderline Hall of Fame talent, your team’s weakened. Trying to argue against that, whatever my optimistic thoughts, would be ridiculous. Bosa is a fantastic player. 64.5 sacks across what is essentially four pro years (two, now, being abbreviated by a torn ACL) tells you enough to know that.

But the 49ers did do some preparation for this; this was the whole point of that much-maligned offseason. True, adding players like Mykel Williams in the draft, Bryce Huff by trade, and previous additions like Yetur Gross-Matos were done to complement Bosa, rather than replace him. But we are seeing those players develop, with Williams and Huff in particular big factors in Sunday’s narrow win over Arizona.

What likely happens now is that those two players take more prominent roles, with Huff moving from part-time pass rusher to full-time defensive end, while Williams will be asked to accelerate his pass-rush growth to add extra pop to the team’s defense. That might be coming along well, as Huff and Williams combined for eleven of the team’s 22 pass-rush pressures in Sunday’s game. They’ve certainly made noise as rushers, and while neither are Bosa as a one-on-one threat, they are good NFL players. Sometimes you have to recreate in the aggregate.

Third-year defensive end Sam Okuayinonu seems to be Bosa’s primary replacement, recording the majority of snaps along with Williams on the defensive line on Sunday. He’s also already been part of the team’s "finishing" package, being on the field as a rusher along with Bosa, Huff, and Williams in the crunch time of the team’s opening games. While he’s not a household name (and many probably can’t even spell it), he has proven to be a solid NFL player in his time with the team, and had a strong season last year in another year of attrition for the 49ers defensive line.

…But the Damage is Further Downstream

Where the team gets hurt is further downstream, namely in depth. Both Kris Kocurek, as a defensive line coach, and Robert Saleh as a defensive coordinator, build their scheme on depth across the defensive line and frequent pass-rush rotations. Saleh’s 2019 unit, including the likes of Dee Ford and Ronnie Blair, benefited greatly from this. The idea was always to put players in their best spots, with those two players in particular being particular forces as spot pass-rushers rather than every-down players.

That was clearly the plan with Bryce Huff this year, too, and it worked to perfection, particularly against the New Orleans Saints, where Huff came up with a game-winning forced fumble late in the fourth quarter. With him now becoming a seemingly more regular part of the defensive unit, it’ll require others to step up in his absence.

One issue here, though, is the sheer lack of depth in terms of edge players. The vast majority of the 49ers defensive ends, Williams included, function better as ends on base downs who switch to the inside on passing downs. That also applies to Yetur Gross-Matos. The only real pass-rushing specialist end on the team was Huff, and he will be less useful in that situation now.

One possible solution would be to make Okuayinonu the every-down end, with Huff still rotating in in pass rush situations, but minus Bosa, that makes Huff more of a focal point, rather than able to clean up as teams focus on Bosa’s phenomenal talent.

Robert Saleh will Earn his Money

Perhaps the biggest reason for optimism, though, is the man who’ll be tasked with figuring out the answers, namely defensive coordinator Robert Saleh. I’ve written previously about my scepticism over the rehiring of Saleh this offseason, but through three weeks of the season, he’s more than eliminated those doubts. He looks a much more experienced and varied defensive coordinator than in his first spell with the team, and the unit is continuing to improve week on week. Yes, Bosa is a loss, but he’ll still be able to work with the likes of Fred Warner, Deommodore Lenoir, and the rapidly improving Dee Winters to come up with a solution.

I’ve total faith in him doing so, moreso than in 2020, when the team last lost Bosa. People forget this now (and I did at the time, too), but the team’s backup plans and depth for Bosa–Solomon Thomas and Ziggy Ansah among them–also went down that year. Not only did Saleh have to maneuver his chess pieces around anyway, but he had far less of them to play with than he does in 2025. He also suffered attrition in the secondary and at linebacker, too, something which, mercifully, seems to be missing from this year’s unit so far.

What will he do schematically? Well, dammit, Jim, I’m a writer, not a defensive coordinator, but I’m thinking he might go to some more blitz-heavy looks (something he’s done a little more of this season already), but also will likely put more emphasis on the 49ers’ talented secondary, giving the depleted pass rush a little bit more time to get home.

Regardless, I’ve no doubt that whatever he does, he’ll find a way to put together a coherent and talented unit. It’s just what he does.

Could the 49ers Make a Move?

One of the first questions seemingly everyone asked in the immediate aftermath of Bosa’s injury announcement was this: could the 49ers make a splashy trade move to cover his loss?

Simple answer: Yes. John Lynch has shown aggressiveness and belief in his roster even when the world didn’t, acquiring the likes of Christian McCaffrey, Randy Gregory, Chase Young and Emmanuel Sanders with varying degrees of success. It’s not hard to imagine that the team might make a similar move here.

However, I wouldn’t expect it just yet. With the possible exception of the devastated Miami Dolphins, no one seems yet ready to become sellers at the trade table, so a move is unlikely to be on the horizon any time soon.

Closer to the deadline, though, and with some Robert Saleh-experienced players out there? You betcha. My guess, though, is that they’ll try and give the team’s incumbent players a chance to fill the Bosa void first. That’ll begin in Week 4 against Jacksonville.

Hang on to your hats, folks. Let’s see what this team is really made of.