Defensive Line Thread

Originally posted by Heroism:
Let's be real: Mykel Williams is going to look bad when he comes back, so prepare for the dooming. It's going to be a bad start for the 2025 draft DL.

As long as he's not getting pushed 10 yards back it'll be an improvement

Originally posted by Heroism:
trash play

Lowest-graded 49ers on defense against the Raiders (PFF):

CJ West: 30.0
Evan Anderson: 35.3
Alfred Collins: 38.1

Watch West and Collins… pic.twitter.com/Q3zfPRqreM

— Coach Yac 🗣 (@Coach_Yac) August 28, 2026

There are 49ers' fans who clearly don't know about DL trying to explain away this terrible play from CJ West. First of all, I hate how he gets off the bal--pad level battle lost already. He rises rather than exploding forward. Then he allows his key(left guard) to get into his chest followed by terrible hand placement. Both of CJ's hands end up outside the framework of his guy. Just a poor, poor job just of providing any sort of resistance to the Raiders OL.



This is what happens you try to take on 600 pounds with brute strength rather than technique. CJ West gets completely turned around and ends up perpendicular to the line of scrimmage. Every DL learns from pop warner to the pros to fight like hell to stay square to the line of scrimmage. Mind you the RB is still in the backfield, and CJ is already completely turned.



What should CJ have done? Fire off the ball maintaining leverage; create knockback by attacking his primary key(the left guard; turn the DOUBLE into a SINGLE and turn 1 MAN into A HALF MAN; INSIDE HAND ON STERNUM; OUTSIDE HAND ON WRIST/BICEP; get a wide base and drop weight; fight like a rabid dog to stay square; ONCE YOU FEEL YOUR PRESSURE KEY--LEAN INTO THEM LIKE HELL. You have to fight like

Be careful who you're listen to. Sorry for the caps— I'm on my phone and channeled my inner Kocurek.

I want to add that I do think most of this can be attributed to rust for CJ. He's not a bad player. Alfred Collins, however....

West and Collins are coming back from injuries, so I expect they will be rusty.

However, I do think there needs to be a reevaluation of our scouting and coaching across the DL. To put it bluntly, I'm putting Kris Kocurek on notice.

He inherited strong talent 8 years ago with Buckner, Armstead, Bosa, etc. And granted there's been expected and intentional turnover to usher in the next generation of talent. However, our drafting has been poor and we keep augmenting it with trades and vet FA additions that turn into short-term rentals at the expense of draft picks and salary cap room.

Collins, Floyd, Hargrave, Huff, Elliott, Young, Omeiheu, etc. And then draft duds like Kinlaw, Jackson and now what's looking like Collins and West to the point that we had to yet again trade for talent like Oso.

This year needs to be the year of put up or shut up. We have some good promising talent and Bosa coming back.

Now you can ask yourself is that scouting or coaching? Well, Kocurek has been involved in both and advocated for many of those transactions.

Originally posted by GEEK:
West and Collins are coming back from injuries, so I expect they will be rusty.

However, I do think there needs to be a reevaluation of our scouting and coaching across the DL. To put it bluntly, I'm putting Kris Kocurek on notice.

He inherited strong talent 8 years ago with Buckner, Armstead, Bosa, etc. And granted there's been expected and intentional turnover to usher in the next generation of talent. However, our drafting has been poor and we keep augmenting it with trades and vet FA additions that turn into short-term rentals at the expense of draft picks and salary cap room.

Collins, Floyd, Hargrave, Huff, Elliott, Young, Omeiheu, etc. And then draft duds like Kinlaw, Jackson and now what's looking like Collins and West to the point that we had to yet again trade for talent like Oso.

This year needs to be the year of put up or shut up. We have some good promising talent and Bosa coming back.

Now you can ask yourself is that scouting or coaching? Well, Kocurek has been involved in both and advocated for many of those transactions.

Our DL drafting has been absolutely atrocious. The only hits I can think of were Nick Bosa which was a gimme and DJ Jones both were quite awhile ago

At first glance, with James Thompson jr, gracen halton, trading for osa…it looks like Raheem knows what he's doing in terms of redoing the line

Originally posted by DonnieDarko:
At first glance, with James Thompson jr, gracen halton, trading for osa…it looks like Raheem knows what he's doing in terms of redoing the line

Don't get your hopes up Raheem will get a HC gig after the season screwing us out of a 3rd round comp and then we'll hire some one totally sucks or scheme is to the weakness of the DL

Hmmmm

Originally posted by 49ersRing:

I've seen this play circulating as a bad rep by CJ West. Just looking at the blocking action he's facing, he's not doing anything wrong. This is part of why the Shanahan run game system is so hard to defend. They want these non-wide zone plays to feel like wide-zone to the… pic.twitter.com/TFxPbkR7Zo

— JonnyDel's Backup (@SulligentHUB) August 28, 2026

Hmmmm

see above. I respect jd, but he's flat out wrong on this one.



come on, bro. Not doing anything wrong? lol

Alfred getting pancaked at the end of that clip by DJ Glaze who was ranked 65th out of 89 qualifying tackles last year according to PFF. That's got to be disheartening to say the least.

Originally posted by Since07:
Don't get your hopes up Raheem will get a HC gig after the season screwing us out of a 3rd round comp and then we'll hire some one totally sucks or scheme is to the weakness of the DL

No he won't. No one is hiring a 2 time coaching flameout after a single season. Took Raheem over a decade to get a 2nd shot.

Was that Collins that got caked? My god

Originally posted by Since07:

Originally posted by DonnieDarko:
At first glance, with James Thompson jr, gracen halton, trading for osa…it looks like Raheem knows what he's doing in terms of redoing the line

Don't get your hopes up Raheem will get a HC gig after the season screwing us out of a 3rd round comp and then we'll hire some one totally sucks or scheme is to the weakness of the DL

I'd bet that his HC days are over

Originally posted by Heroism:
Let's be real: Mykel Williams is going to look bad when he comes back, so prepare for the dooming. It's going to be a bad start for the 2025 draft DL.

He didn't look good when he played last year

Originally posted by Sask49erFan:
He didn't look good when he played last year

He did with regards to stopping the run setting the edge and rushing from the interior.

Picking a play from a meaningless game to condemn two guys is a bit wild. However both these guys haven't shown to be anything more than rotational pieces. If there are holes that big in the regular season I will be alarmed and surprised.