Despite the loss to the Seattle Seahawks, second-year San Francisco 49ers defensive lineman DeForest Buckner earned Sunday's game ball from Pro Football Focus. He leads all interior defensive linemen in quarterback pressures with 12. Buckner has seven quarterback hurries and five hits through two weeks of play.
Buckner was also impressed with his own performance on Sunday. In fact, despite not being able to bring down Russell Wilson, he felt it might have been the best game of his NFL career. On Wednesday morning, Buckner joined the "Murph & Mac" show on KNBR and explained why.
"Even though I came off sackless, I felt like I was making my presence known having [Russell Wilson] run for his life a little bit the whole game," Buckner said. "I definitely felt like I was in the zone the whole game. Even my D-line coach (Jeff Zgonina) was telling me he didn't want to take me out because when he was playing back in the day -- when he was in the zone -- he didn't like it when coaches took him out when he was in that stride.
"I told him, 'Thank you for that,' because it's very frustrating when you've got the ball rolling and you're doing really good and your coach just kind of breaks off that momentum."
By the end of the year, we'll be mentioning DeForest Buckner in the same breath as guys like Atkins, Suh & Donald #49ers #49wz
— Al Sacco (@AlSacco49) September 19, 2017
Buckner went on to say that rattling a quarterback can be just as effective as bringing him down and feels that can be key on Thursday night.
"Coming into this week, [Los Angeles Rams quarterback] Jared Goff, he kind of gets rattled a little bit when you make your presence known early," Buckner said. "We've got to do the same thing as a unit this coming week to really get after him."
Buckner also discussed the 49ers' new defensive scheme under coordinator Robert Saleh and feels the game has slowed down for him now that he is past his rookie season.
"It's more of an attack type of scheme and last year was a read and react," Buckner said. "It's able to -- not just me -- but allow everybody on the defense to make plays. Whenever a play comes your way, you've got to make that play because sometimes you may not even get another opportunity because the defense is meant for everybody to make plays."
Despite the short turnaround from Sunday's game to Thursday night's matchup against the Rams, Buckner feels pretty good.
"I feel pretty good right now," Buckner said. "If we had the game today, I'd be able to play."
The 49ers and Rams kick off their Thursday night matchup at Levi's Stadium at 5:25 pm PT.
You can listen to the entire interview with Buckner below.