According to Pro Football Focus, the San Francisco 49ers defense missed only four tackles in Sunday night's game against the Dallas Cowboys. This marks a substantial improvement, as the defense has previously recorded double-digit missed tackles three times this season and nine or more five times. From Weeks 4 through 6, the 49ers averaged 14 missed tackles per game, peaking at 17 in Week 4's victory over the New England Patriots.
Earlier in the season, defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen attributed the high missed-tackle count to the unit's aggressive playing style.
"I think we miss tackles sometimes because we're aggressive," Sorensen explained on October 10. "We do coach our guys to take their shots. ... We play aggressive, we play violent."
Hopefully, this improvement in tackling will continue, as missed tackles can be costly when combined with other fundamental lapses. General manager John Lynch, speaking Wednesday morning on Bay Area radio station KNBR, suggested that tackling could further improve with the anticipated return of linebacker Dre Greenlaw. The star defender has earned a Pro Football Focus tackling grade of 74.7 or higher in three of his five seasons.
"You talk about another game-changer, if we can get Dre back here, Dre's as good at tackling as there is," Lynch explained. "So much of football now, defensive football, is can you make plays in space? Offenses are getting really good at putting your players in space, and Dre's as good a space player, physical player [as anyone]. He makes such a difference for us."
Greenlaw, who began the season on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list, has been working toward a return from the torn Achilles he suffered in February during the Super Bowl. On Tuesday, head coach Kyle Shanahan provided an update, sharing that Greenlaw's return is approaching.
"I don't want to put a timetable on it," Shanahan shared. "I'd probably be surprised [if it was] right after the bye week, but I do think after that, it'll be close to being week-to-week, which means, if everything goes right, that'll be a sooner week than later week for whatever diagnosis that is."
Lynch echoed Shanahan's optimism while noting the boost Greenlaw would bring to the team's tackling efforts.
"We pride ourselves on being a really good tackling team by getting there in numbers," Lynch added. "And I thought, early in that game, only one guy, I think 87, [Cowboys TE Jake] Ferguson, he was eluding some tackles, but then he was carrying the ball loose as well, so I knew one would come out. I thought we were going to have it. We put it on the ground. It seemed like there was three of us, one of him, and he ended up getting it.
"But sometimes the ball doesn't always bounce [your way]. But I did feel like we tightened up our tackling. We started getting numbers to the ball and kind of overwhelmed them there, so that was a good thing."
You can listen to Lynch's entire interview below.