January 08, 2026
Sergio Estrada/Imagn Images
The 49ers' defense got physically beaten up by the Seahawks Week 18.
It's go time. The Philadelphia Eagles are in the playoffs, and their Wild Card Round opponent is the San Francisco 49ers, who the Birds did not play this season, but with whom they have some history.
Yesterday we showed five things to watch when the 49ers have the ball. Today we'll look at when the Eagles have the ball.
As noted in our Eagles-49ers injury report, the Niners' top four linebackers are hurt to varying degrees. A recap:
• LB1 Fred Warner: Warner is considered by some to be the best off-ball linebacker in the NFL, with four First-Team All Pro nods. He does everything well. He can play the run, he's outstanding in coverage, he can blitz, and he's a smart field general. He suffered a gruesome ankle injury Week 6, and will not play in this game. Warner had 51 tackles, 2 forced fumbles, and 3 pass breakups in 6 games this season.
• LB2 Dee Winters: Winters suffered an ankle injury when he got stepped on against Seattle. He was second on the team in snaps played in 2025, behind only CB Deommodore Lenoir. In 2025, Winters had 101 tackles, a pick-six, and 5 pass breakups. He did not practice on Wednesday.
• LB3 Tatum Bethune: Bethune was Warner's replacement. He suffered a torn groin against the Seahawks Week 18, and his season is over. Bethune had 94 tackles, a sack, and 4 pass breakups as a fill-in. He played well against the run, but was shaky in coverage.
• LB4 Luke Gifford: Gifford earned a trip to the Pro Bowl for his special teams play this season. He also had a role in the regular defense as a SAM linebacker, getting defensive snaps in 15 of the Niners' regular season games. Gifford has a quad injury, and was limited on Wednesday.
Starting in place of Bethune/Warner will be 33-year-old Eric Kendricks, who had 138 tackles, 3 sacks, 3 forced fumbles, and 2 INTs for Dallas in 2024. In 2025, he has appeared in just 3 games, and has played only 46 snaps. There are worse players around the league who are starting at linebacker than Kendricks, in my opinion, so the Niners are lucky to have him. But obviously, having to start him in place of two other injured linebackers is not ideal.
OK, so they're banged up. How do the Eagles take advantage?
Well, the Eagles had a similar situation in Week 13, when the Bears were starting their LB4 and LB6. We figured at the time that it made sense to get Dallas Goedert heavily involved, but nope. Goedert had 2 catches on 4 targets for 27 yards. They just didn't seem to do anything obvious to try to attack the Bears' deep reserves at linebacker.
One thing the Eagles have been effective with at times this season is tempo. If they can make positive plays on first down, they can try to force Kendricks to make defensive calls on the fly and communicate them to the rest of the defense, which won't be easy for a player who has only played 46 snaps this season, even if he's been in the league for a decade.
The Niners had a league-low 20 sacks this season in 2025. The last time a team had fewer than 20 sacks in a season was in 2021, when the Falcons had 18.
The Niners lost Nick Bosa for the season to a torn ACL, and nobody has stepped up in his absence.
Their co-leaders in sacks are Bryce Huff, the former Eagle who was traded to San Francisco this past offseason; and Clelin Ferrell, who the 49ers added to their roster after the Chargers cut him, in-season. They have 4 sacks apiece. Huff got out to a strong start with 4 sacks in his first 7 games in San Francisco, but he had 0 sacks in the Niners' last 10 games.
The Niners' depth chart along their defensive line, via Ourlads:
| Niners DL | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| LDE | Bryce Huff | Yetur Gross-Matos | Robert Beal |
| LDT | Jordan Elliott | Alfred Collins | Kevin Givens |
| RDT | Kalia Davis | C.J. West | |
| RDE | Sam Okuayinonu | Keion White | Clelin Ferrell |
Not exactly a lot of household names there.
If you watched the 49ers-Seahawks game last Saturday night, you saw a parade of missed tackles by the Niners defense.
49ers missed tackles against the Seahawks:
— Kyle Posey (@KP_Show) January 5, 2026
Bethune: 5
Winters: 4
Mustapha: 3
Brown: 2
Lenoir: 2
Kendricks: 1
YGM: 1
CJ West: 1
Huff: 1
Stout: 1
Wallow: 1
Collins: 1
23 missed tackles led to Seattle having 272 yards after contact.
The lowlight was probably when the Seahawks called a give-up run on 3rd and 17, and Kenneth Walker pretty easily ran for a first down anyway.
The Niners were a middle of the road run defense statistically during the regular season, but they were an abomination Week 18.
Obviously, the Eagles are going to run the ball on Sunday. It will be interesting to see if guys like Landon Dickerson, Cam Jurgens, and Lane Johnson can be more effective with rested bodies against this banged-up Niners defense.
But also, over the last couple of months, we have noted here that Jalen Hurts did not like having a lot of designed QB runs in the game plan this season. His numbers show a clear downtick in rushing attempts:
| Year | Rushing attempts per game |
| 2020 | 15.8 |
| 2021 | 9.3 |
| 2022 | 11.0 |
| 2023 | 9.2 |
| 2024 | 10.0 |
| 2025 | 6.6 |
Now that we're in the postseason, my expectation is that Hurts will be more willing to run with the ball, and the Eagles will call more designed runs.
The Niners' top three corners are Deommodore Lenoir, Renardo Green, and Upton Stout. Their listed heights/weights:
• Deommodore Lenoir: 5'10, 200
• Renardo Green: 6'0, 186
• Upton Stout: 5'9, 182
There could be opportunities for A.J. Brown to out-muscle the Niners' corners, particularly after the catch against the poor-tackling Lenoir, and with 50-50 balls to DeVonta Smith.
So to recap all of the above, the 49ers can't rush the passer, they're coming off one of the worst tackling performances of the entire season (league-wide), their corners are theoretically bad matchups for the Eagles' receivers, and the Eagles are rested while the 49ers were on the wrong end of a physical beatdown a last Saturday.
On paper, there are any number of ways the Eagles' offense can take advantage of this Niners defense. They're bad across the board.
The Eagles' offense has been tough to watch throughout the season, with predictable, uncreative schemes, ultra-conservative approaches with the lead, and in some cases underperforming players. We're into January, and they still don't have an identity. They need to find something that works for them early, and make that their identity, if only for one game, and then figure it out from there.
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