49ers Had Zero Sacks Against The Rams, But Still Made Massive Improvements Getting To The Quarterback

58. That’s the number of quarterback hits the San Francisco 49ers generated in the 2025 season. That’s not very good. Even in Week 1, when the entire defense was healthy, the 49ers generated a paltry two quarterback hits and a single sack.

Week 1 in their win over the Los Angeles Rams? Zero sacks, but eight hits. 13 percent of their entire 2025 total. Now, yes, it is Week 1, so it’s fair to look at last year’s Week 1 pressure rate. In 2025, at Seattle Seahawks, the 49ers managed 10 hits, except no player had more than two.

In 2026? Four—or three, depending on where you get your stats from— of those eight hits came from Osa Odighizuwa. Don’t confuse that with the five pressures Odighizuwa also generated in the game. Odighizuwa was a wrecking ball through the middle, something the 49ers have sorely needed.

So the defensive line, without sacks, looked pretty ferocious. What else did this help? The secondary. Best illustrated by this video below of one Osa Odighizuwa raising all sorts of hell for Matthew Stafford:

Chalk this up to the pass rush making the secondary much better, because the quarterback doesn’t have all day to throw in the pocket.

Pressures and hits are nice. It’s disappointing that Alfred Collins is out for the season, but the 49ers have even more room for improvement once Mykel Williams comes off the physically unable to perform list. Provided he can get ramped up with little issue.

It’s just one game, and we’ll need to look at a larger sample size to see how much time the 49ers are letting their opposing quarterbacks throw the ball, but so far the Odighizuwa acquisition is paying dividends, and with the addition of Nick Bosa back, the secondary can do its work.

At the very least, the 49ers secondary had six interceptions in 2025 total. Getting to the quarterback might improve that number. They got their first one on Thursday.