A DEFENSE SHALL LEAD THEM

Powerful, playmaking unit taking 49ers to the top

- Craig Massei

After the 49ers’ 51-13 demolition of the Carolina Panthers in late October, Richard Sherman — the Godfather of San Francisco’s compelling new dynamic defense — stood before a large media contingent that once again had come to see if the 49ers are for real and launched into an unsolicited 500-word soliloquy, reveling in the magnificence that had just been witnessed before him.

San Francisco’s shutdown of a capable Carolina offense was something the 49ers had been doing for a while now, and Sherman didn’t quite know where to begin.

He decided to start with himself. “Well, it’s great defense. It’s great, sound defense,” Sherman said of his third-quarter interception — the four-time All-Pro cornerback’s third pick this season — that quickly led to a score that put the 49ers up by four touchdowns with plenty of defense still to play.

But Sherman also was talking about the others around him on a resurgent San Francisco defense that has become the talk of the 2019 NFL season. In fact, Sherman simply couldn’t stop gushing about that defense, what it has done, what it is doing and where it is going.

“When your D-line is hunting like that, pressure all day and night on them, the great thing about this defense is you just have to play sound,” Sherman said. “It’s team defense, and that’s what we’re playing. These guys are playing great, and I think they deserve all the credit in the world.”

Those San Francisco defenders are getting credit now from all corners of the football world, which has caught on quickly to a new brand of 49ers defense that is stifling opponents, taking no prisoners and becoming the rage throughout the league.