© Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports
We’re down to the elite portion of the countdown now, with the 49ers’ top 10 players.
10. Raheem Mostert
There’s a debate about whether Mostert is simply a product of Kyle Shanahan’s scheme, which is borne out of the fact that any running back who hits a hole at speed will likely be successful in Shanahan’s offense. But that shouldn’t discount Mostert’s ability. He rushed for 220 yards and 4 TDs in the conference championship game against the Green Bay Packers in great part due to scheme, but also because he’s a lightning-quick runner with elite vision and cutback ability.
Mostert does not hesitate, and he hits his marks at the line at nearly top speed, which is borderline impossible to defend down-in and down-out.
He also has worked himself into one of the best special teams players in the NFL. His work as a gunner is just about unparalleled, and his effectiveness there rubbed off on his teammates, and is a significant part of what makes the 49ers’ punt unit so consistent. He knows how to track fumbled balls and plays with a fearlessness that’s not teachable. There’s an argument to be made that he should be higher on this list, but I have a suspicion he won’t be playing the same amount of special teams reps as in seasons past.
9. Jimmy Garoppolo
There’s nothing quite like a good old-fashioned Jimmy Garoppolo debate, because he lives in the spot where he’s not verifiably elite nor verifiably poor. He’s shown flashes of brilliance and dud-heaviness, but most of the time he lives somewhere in between. He was also a victim, at least in the public consciousness, of how dominant the 49ers’ run game was. He didn’t often have to carry the offense, though, when tasked with doing so, he generally did so. Of course, except for the Super Bowl, which is a perfect way to flame out of a game and fuel a debate once again.
But the less-than sexy reality is that Garoppolo is a good quarterback. Not elite, not terrible. Above average. And in a Kyle Shanahan-run offense, in his first full year as a starting coming off ACL surgery, that was almost enough to win a Super Bowl. I see him as the 11th-best quarterback in the league behind: Drew Brees, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, Dak Prescott, Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford, Deshaun Watson, Carson Wentz and Russell Wilson.
Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Tua Tagavoila and Kyler Murray could surpass him this year, while Brees, Rodgers, Ryan and Wentz have a degree of worrying wear that could see Garoppolo surpass them if he continues to improve.
More than anything, it’s his decision-making where he needs to grow. Too often, he locked onto his first progression and failed to identify the other options on the field. From anywhere, even 20 yards past the line of scrimmage, his accuracy was elite, and he showed up most often on third down, where his 50 percent conversion percentage was first among all eligible NFL quarterbacks. With a year under his belt and an offseason in which he doesn’t have to rehab his knee, expect a substantial improvement in Garoppolo’s quick-trigger decisions.
8. Jimmie Ward
Ward’s injuries have often distracted from the fact that he is an elite free safety in the NFL. The natural instincts he has for tracking the ball is paired with a film-oriented, studious nature, rangey speed and hit power well above his size. The result is a safety who can cut down angles with veracity and velocity, and who is so well-prepared for games that he and his mostly veteran cohorts in Jaquiski Tartt, Richard Sherman and K’Waun Williams, work almost as a fluid organism, understanding where the other is supposed to be.
There’s a reason the 49ers gave him a three-year (effectively two years, with free third-year out), $28.41 million deal. He’s indispensable as the “eraser.” Ward is the guy to cut down plays that crack the second line of defense with confident angles to the ball, and more often than not, he’s the guy who prevents those explosive plays from ever happening.
7. Dee Ford
The fact that Ford is ranked here and played just 22 percent of the team’s regular season snaps last season, belies just how dominant he is as a pass rusher. If you were to even double that total, to the 44 percent that Ford accrued in his sophomore season with the Chiefs, that equates to 13.0 sacks on the season.
And while extrapolating numbers for say, Jeff Wilson Jr. doesn’t work by simply multiplying snaps by stats, with Ford, it’s not that far-fetched. He pretty much exclusively played third downs, and had a career-high 13.0 sacks in 2019 on 87 percent of the Chiefs snaps. He said that, despite being injured for most of the season, he felt mentally better than he’s ever felt and that his understanding of the game is at an elite level. Following offseason surgery for his chronic knee/quad tendinitis, Ford also said he feels great physically.
His impact, though limited to those few snaps, was outsized. Here are the team’s stats when he was on the field compared to when he was off, heading into the playoffs:
Pressures with/without: 37.0 with, 19.4 without
Sack rate (sack percentage per down) with/without: 14.6 with, 3.6 without
TD-INT with/without: 2 TD, 4 INT with, 20 TD, 8 INT without
6. Arik Armstead
The case against Armstead is that it took his fifth full season for him to succeed, and that was while he was surrounded by DeForest Buckner, Dee Ford and Nick Bosa. But it seemed to be just as much a product of being healthy and finding the right coaches in Kris Kocurek and Chris Kiffin. They helped Armstead channel his aggression and athleticism into violent use of his hands, and become the team’s regular season sack leader with 10.0. He was surpassed by Nick Bosa (13.0 to Armstead’s 12.0) in the playoffs, but his success last season wasn’t flukey.
He’s always had the tools to be a dominant defensive linemen, but in being used mainly as a 3 and 5 technique, Armstead demonstrated that he’s a versatile pass-rush and run-stopping threat from most positions across the defensive line. There will of course be questions about whether he can repeat that performance next season with mainly D.J. Jones and Javon Kinlaw next to him as opposed to Buckner, but Armstead proved he’s entering the start of his peak.