San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa finished Monday night's game against the Rams with three tackles, two sacks, five quarterback hits, and, according to Pro Football Focus, a career-high 14 total pressures. To put that statistic into perspective, the entire Rams defense finished with five total pressures.
Bosa leads the NFL with 30 pressures. He accomplished that feat despite opposing offenses doing everything they could—including blatant holding—to stop the powerful pass rusher. Bosa is used to it by now. Unfortunately, he rarely gets any help from the refs officiating his games.
This week, head coach Kyle Shahanan revealed that the 49ers regularly turn in examples showing opponents going beyond the rules while trying to stop Bosa.
"But yeah, we turn everything in every week, and sometimes they agree; sometimes they don't," Shanahan said. "So that's kind of the [status] quo in anything that has to do with that, and you just hope it improves."
At one point in Monday night's game, a frustrated Bosa went up to a ref to complain about being tackled to the ground by a Rams offensive player.
"He was looking downfield instead of where he should have been looking," Bosa said of this specific ref and incident. "I said, 'He tackled me.' And I think he said something like, 'He can do that.' I was like, 'Alright, he must have not heard me.'"
Bosa admits that he now realizes there isn't much he can do to get those types of calls regularly.
"Just keep going," he added, looking somewhat disappointed with the situation.
While Bosa didn't view that specific interaction as positive, he believes the refs haven't been "too bad" so far this season ... at least, before Monday night's game.
"But I think the Rams just get away with a lot of [holds]," he noted.