During their ugly loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in a Super Bowl rematch on Sunday, one of the bright spots for the San Francisco 49ers was the play of rookie safety Malik Mustapha.
The rookie out of Wake Forest led the 49ers in tackles with 12. Along with leading the team in tackles, Mustapha helped provide a spark to the defense with some physicality and highlight-worthy hits.
Yet, his breakout performance was curbed by Mustapha being on the wrong end of a run from Patrick Mahomes. Late in the game, Mahomes ran for a Chiefs touchdown. On his way to the endzone, the Chiefs quarterback ran over Mustapha at the goal line. After the game, Mustapha quickly took to Twitter with a joke about being run over by Mahomes.
On Wednesday when asked about Mustapha, head coach Kyle Shanahan had praise for the 49ers’ rookie safety. Shanahan said he thinks Mustapha played one of the better games of his rookie season. Shanahan also commented on Mustapha getting trucked by Mahomes at the end of the game.
Oh, he’s been awesome. I thought he played a really good game. I thought he had one of the better games on our team. I thought he had some really good hits. He got in an unfortunate position on the goal line, but that’s what I like about him. He’s not going to sit there and take a creative angle, even if he’s not in position to have his legs under him he’s going to just throw his body out there and do whatever he can. And unfortunately, you’ve got to deal with social media these days. But I haven’t had to deal with it, so I don’t know how bad it is for him. I thought he had one of his better games.
During Sunday’s Week 7 contest, Mustapha punished Chiefs playmakers with multiple big hits that echoed through Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. Shanahan said Mustapha uses a “sprint tackle.”
Yeah, you can hear it, you can see it. He’s one of those guys that, we call it a sprint-tackle. He doesn’t really, you have a long-stride to eat up the grass and a short-stride to kind of hit guys and he’s just long-stride. He kind of goes right through them and there’s one speed and that’s the best way to tackle guys, as long as you don’t miss.
With secondary-leader Talanoa Hufanga dealing with a wrist injury, the 49ers will continue to lean on the rookie safety as an anchor on the back end of their defense.
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