49ers in Five: This defense will eat you alive

If defense wins championships, you can give the 49ers the Lombardi trophy right now. Every level of the unit has stars playing at an incredibly high level, DeMeco Ryans is in his bag, and they absolutely ate the Rams’ lunch on Monday Night Football.

The numbers from the game almost defy description. Zero touchdowns allowed, two more sacks from Nick Bosa, seven total from the team, a whopping 14 pressures from Bosa alone, and 15 tackles by Dre Greenlaw - to name a few.

Zoom out to look at the season as a whole, and the picture is somehow even more impressive.

Not mentioned in the tweet? The 49ers haven’t allowed a touchdown in the first half this entire season. They’ve only allowed three first-quarter points, and those came last night. What we are witnessing right now is already arguably the best defense of the Kyle Shanahan era and quite possibly could end up as one of the best defenses of all time.

If it wasn’t clear before, DeMeco Ryans is going to have his choice of head coaching jobs after the season, and he has clearly earned that right. When you combine great players with a coordinator at the top of his game like Ryans is right now, this is the result you get—a defense on pace for a historic season. The best coaches squeeze all the juice from the orange, and clearly, that is happening right now.

The offense wasn’t spectacular (outside of Deebo Samuel), but if the defense is going to play this well while Kyle Shanahan figures out the other side of the ball, the 49ers are going to be very hard to beat going forward.

Hear more about this and other stories in today’s 49ers in Five podcast. Our five minute daily update gives you the latest news, best audio clips, and everything else you need to know about the team. Subscribe to the Niners Nation Podcast Network today so you don’t miss an episode!