If it seemed like Nick Bosa didn’t come out of the game much during the 49ers’ rout of the Steelers in Pittsburgh on Sunday, your eyes weren’t deceiving you. And interestingly enough, it actually wasn’t because the San Francisco coaches decided to lay off the rip cord with their star pass rusher, even though he’d reported to the team just 72 hours (or so) before the opener.
As it turns out, the Niners’ defense was, well, too good for the plan to reveal itself.
“I was very confident talking to [the staff during the week],” Bosa told me postgame, from the visiting locker room at Acrisure Stadium. “And they were confident in my ability to go out there and play some plays. We wanted to keep it under 40 snaps. I think it was 35. The three-and-outs were perfect for getting me going, so I didn’t have to go too long on those drives.”
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Indeed, the Niners started the game by forcing five straight three-and-outs (one ending in a pick, the other four in punts). The Steelers’ initial first down didn’t come until Pittsburgh’s two-minute touchdown drive to end the first half. So as a result of continuing to send Kenny Pickett & Co. to the sideline, the Niners never really needed to do the same with Bosa.
And that made Sunday feel like business as usual for everyone in the defensive huddle.
In a lot of ways, it was, as the Niners eviscerated the Steelers, 30–7, on their home field.
But for Bosa himself, in the aftermath of a six-week holdout and, finally, the completion of a five-year, $135 million extension, there was a little more to being able to get back out there with his teammates of the last four years. The contract itself, of course, is meaningful, and not just because of its record-breaking value. It’s also what Bosa went through, especially injury-wise, to get to that bag, including the holdout itself.
Now that it’s over, he and I had a chance to cover where he’s been along the way, how he got here and where he’s going next—playing for a team that showed Sunday that it’s as ready as any to compete for a championship in the here and now.
John Bosa looked down at his phone Wednesday and saw his younger son’s name. He’ll admit now, he was a tick hesitant to pick up, just because of the timing—four days from the opener—and implications of the call he was about to field.
“It’s one of two things,” the elder Bosa says. “It’s either great news or it’s tough sledding as far as the negotiation goes. It could’ve been See you tomorrow morning on the field.”
Instead, it was two simple words, from son to father: It’s done.
What followed, in John Bosa’s words, was par for the course. “As usual,” he says, “I got very emotional, I cried a lot.” And he thought, as his kid did, of the dark moments of 2016 when Nick tore his ACL as a high school senior; and of ’18, when he made the tough decision to leave Ohio State to have sports hernia surgery and prepare for the draft; and of ’20, when Nick tore his ACL against the Jets on the new, loose MetLife Stadium turf.
“Nick’s been through a lot,” John says. “A lot of dark days, with all the things he’s been through. So for me, I’m so proud of his dedication and ability to bounce back. These things happened to him and he never missed a beat. He came back, and came back a stronger version of himself. I’m so proud of him.”
This offseason, though, brought a different kind of adversity—this type happening at the bargaining table. The business-minded Bosas, steeled by John’s experience as a 1987 first-round pick whose career was cut short by injury, knew what happened this summer could be coming. But for Nick, that didn’t make staying away from a team he’s invested so much in any easier.
While he knew what he needed to do, he also knew what he was missing.
“It was just the uncertainty,” Nick says. “I like a good schedule, a good routine. Not knowing was kind of wearing on me, especially as it got closer and closer. It all worked out perfectly. I think this team, we took pride in starting fast this year because it’s been a little slow in the past. We’ve taken a while to really click on all cylinders.”
Which is why Bosa knew, while he was away, he needed a plan that would allow him to hold up his own end of that bargain.
That meant continuing with the training he’d adhered to all offseason at the gym he and his big brother Joey built in Fort Lauderdale (which I wrote about in June)—with a slight twist. Nick works with Todd Rice through the spring and into the summer every year, since Rice is Joey’s personal trainer (and one who helped the family hone an innovative, Olympic-style regimen). But once Joey went to L.A. for Chargers training camp, Rice went with him, and so Nick was on his own.
That meant his two hours in the gym every day, and his hour and a half of daily field work, would be largely self-guided, with his dad coming out to set up cones, time him and record numbers as needed. As the season got closer, Nick said, he started “adding some pass-rush stuff a little more toward the end there. I also wanted to be nice and fresh. I’m super confident in my training every year. I stick to the same stuff.”
Which, his dad reports, had his interval times, his get-off measurements and his strength figures at all-time highs as the season approached. “This is probably my best offseason training-wise,” Nick says. “I was very confident.”
All of which led to the Wednesday phone call when he could tell his dad he’d be able, once again, to put that all to work, with the generational wealth he was pursuing realized.
“It was emotional for sure,” Nick says. “There’s not one person on this earth that wants better for me than him. He’s done everything in his power since I was born to make my life as good as it could be. To hear him get emotional, and I remember it for Joey, it’s definitely something I’ll never forget.”
The money’s nice, and that phone call was, too. And briefly, he did get to appreciate the uniqueness of his situation—both he and his brother would not only get drafted higher than their first-round dad, but each would play well enough to land a deal that would change the lives of their kids, and their kids’ kids.
“Yeah,” Nick says, “it’s not very common where two brothers are able to have this much success.”
But what he sees as the best part of getting the deal done—because it was going to happen somewhere, based on how he’s played—is where it happened. And what, as a result, he now gets to walk back into.
“My favorite part is that I’m still with the Niners, and that I get to play the majority of my career, maybe all of it, with this team,” he says. “Not many people get to do that for such an amazing organization. There are a lot of teams in this league that don’t take care of their players as much as the Niners do. The fact that I’m going to be here for a long time with this core of players is unbelievable. For them to believe in me, to invest that much in me, it’s kind of like you have to pinch yourself. You feel a little bit of the imposter syndrome initially.
“Then you kind of reflect on it, and you look back. They don’t just hand out stuff in this league. Everything is earned, and once you kind of realize that, it’s really cool to look back on the ups and downs, especially the injuries and times where I didn’t think I was going to be able to get to this point.”
And that left Bosa back on the field, and in his element, Sunday with a team that’s been on the cusp of a championship for, really, the balance of his career.
The game itself was pretty nondescript. But, to be sure, Bosa did feel like himself out there, even if it only added up to two tackles and a single quarterback hit on this particular afternoon—as well as a whole lot of appreciation for what’s around him.
“Just the whole game, my body was responding well, and that’s the only thing I was uncertain of,” he says. “Every game, you want to make a game-changing play. But to see Drake [Jackson] do that? I’ve watched him throughout the offseason make huge strides. His work ethic, one, and his ability is second to none. To see him put it together and use all that work that he’s put in, I’m really proud of him.”
Jackson, of course, is presumably the next one in the Niner pipeline on the D-line, with free agents Javon Hargrave and Clelin Ferrell now aboard, too, and the ceiling seemingly sky high on what the group can do with Bosa back in the fold. And sky high, really, for the whole team, as Sunday illustrated so vividly for the football-watching world.
Of course, Bosa knew that all along, which is just one reason he’s so happy to be back.
“It was tough to not be a part of it, because every year we’re expecting to go the whole way,” he says. “Just not being there for the guys, seeing them. I was watching tape, and you know I love football, and I want to go to work every day. It was getting a little old.”
So, yes, there’s another way in which Sunday was perfect for Bosa.
And here’s one more—if how it went is any indication, there should be even better days ahead.
