SANTA CLARA — The 49ers entered the 2023 season with arguably the league’s best defense — again. Two games into the campaign, they’ve played well but hardly elite.
But I have some good news heading into Week 3 — Thursday Night Football against the Giants at Levi’s Stadium — and beyond.
The best is yet to come.
That’s how Niners’ linebacker Fred Warner sees it, and you’d be a fool not to trust his vision and anticipation skills.
With the Niners allowing only seven points to the Steelers in Week 1 and locking down the Rams in the second half of Week 2 — San Francisco has the sixth-ranked defense per the DVOA metric to start the campaign — but that success has come despite two serious mitigating factors.
The first: Nick Bosa hasn’t quite been himself. The NFL’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year has 34 sacks over his last two seasons, but he’s been held without one the first two weeks of this season. After holding out until days before the season opener, the slow start can’t be much of a surprise.
On Thursday, Bosa will pick up the first of many sacks this season, when he chases down Giants quarterback Daniel Jones on Thursday. I guarantee it.
Which brings us to our second factor. And this is the big one:
The Niners have a new defensive coordinator who came from outside the building.
Steve Wilks was the right hire for the 49ers when former defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans became the head coach of the Texans.
But no one expected his hiring would come without some growing pains.
Wilks, rightly, came to Santa Clara with his way of doing things. He’s pledged continuity, but how could he truly provide that when he hasn’t been part of the 49ers’ staff until this season?
The season’s first two weeks have shown that the transition won’t be a disaster. The Niners defenders are adapting to Wilks — Wilks is adapting to the Niners’ defenders.
That process of fully understanding one another will take many more weeks.
But when everyone is on the same page, look out — the talent on this defense is exceptional.
“It’s been amazing. I think it’s been really great,” Middle linebacker Fred Warner told me Tuesday. “I think the work we put in throughout training camp — there were a lot of open conversations about how things were moving… The defensive team that we are right now is not what we’ll be later on in the season, November, December, when it matters the most.”
Warner is the one with Wilks in his ear — he wears a headset in his helmet to receive plays from the defensive coordinator.
He’s obviously taken to the new DC well — as a pass rusher, pass defender, and, of course, run stopper, Warner has been all over the field. He can make the claim he’s been the NFL’s best defender so far this season.
As for where the Niners defense, as a whole, needs to grow:
“I don’t know if there’s a specific part of the defense that’s just better,” Warner said. “It’s hard to get that 1 percent improvement off a defense that was ranked No. 1 last year. I think it’s more so just creating that overall camaraderie and chemistry on the field with obviously a new group of players, along with a new defensive coordinator and different coaches.
That’s a gradual process every single day, every single week.”
Wilks agrees.
“I think it’s going to constantly be evolving throughout the year, but I don’t think it’s going to take… a season to get a feel for what we want to do,” he said. “I think you get a feel throughout the course of the game, and I think you saw that the second half [of Week 2] and the adjustments that we made.”
The nature of playing a Thursday game is already a ridiculous challenge for any defense. Playing the Giants and their read-option quarterback runs adds another layer of complexity.
This won’t be the best week to judge Wilks and the Niners’ defense.
This game will be about surviving and advancing.
But Thursday will present another opportunity to build on the understanding between a coordinator and his defense.
And in a few weeks, my bet is that understanding will be evident on the field, and the Niners’ defense will be an unmatchable force yet again.