San Francisco 49ers' Nick Bosa will comfortably outperform analyst's projection for 2024 season

The 2023 NFL season was often a frustrating one for San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa.

After signing a contract extension that made him the highest-paid defensive player in the NFL, Bosa struggled to convert his pressures into sacks for much of the campaign.

Bosa had 95 pressures, per Pro Football Focus, the third-most in the NFL, but finished with just 10.5 sacks, his lowest total across a full season (he suffered a season-ending injury in Week 2 of 2020) since his rookie season of 2019 (9.0).

He did not pen his record-breaking extension until a few days before the 49ers' 2023 opener with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Bosa conceded his contract holdout and the missed practice time that came with it did have an impact on his performance.

"I think it did, both mentally and performance-wise, just not having practice," Bosa told reporters a few days after the 49ers' Super Bowl loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. "I think my hands kind of get going, once I start using them a lot it kind of takes time to get the timing down and that's the biggest thing with practice.

"Just the stress of having that [the contract] looming and the pressure initially once you get it, I kind of worked through all that later in the year, I started to feel better and I think I was playing my best ball towards the end."

The stats back up his assessment of his play at the end of the season. No edge rusher to play multiple playoff games in last year's postseason had a higher pass rush win rate than Bosa (19.7%).

With the pressure of the contract removed, most would expect him to continue to excel and threaten 20-sack seasons as he did in 2021 and 2022.

But ESPN's Mike Clay, in his projections for the 2024 season, has Bosa experiencing another disappointing season in terms of production. He is projecting Bosa finishing 2024 with 10 sacks.

Beyond the relief of not having the contract hanging over his head, Bosa is in an excellent situation to outperform that modest and eyebrow-raising projection.

Though the 49ers parted ways with interior defensive lineman Arik Armstead, they still have an excellent starting defensive tackle duo in Javon Hargrave and Maliek Collins.

The big difference, though, is at the other edge rusher spot, where the presence of Leonard Floyd gives the 49ers a complement to Bosa who is a consistent threat to the quarterback having recorded 39.5 sacks over the last four seasons.

San Francisco, despite adding Chase Young at the trade deadline last season, did not have a player capable of delivering that kind of production at the opposite defensive end spot last season. 

With Floyd, Hargrave and Collins likely joining him up front for the bulk of the snaps in 2024, Bosa is in line to benefit significantly from the attention his teammates on the D-Line will attract. Bosa is consistently chipped and doubled and, when all else fails, held as offensive lines try to contain him. With Floyd entering the mix, those O-Lines likely won't be able to dedicate such focus to Bosa as often as they did in 2023.

As such, predicting 10 sacks for Bosa seems a remarkably conservative call. And it is a prediction he could soon make looks foolish thanks to the one-on-ones he will see more often, a full offseason of preparation and a switch from Steve Wilks to a defensive coordinator in Nick Sorensen who will stick to the 49ers' defensive scheme without making changes that could be a detriment to the unit.

Though his sack production doesn't necessarily reflect it, Bosa still played at an extremely high level down the stretch last year and in the postseason. With the devastating skill set he has at his disposal and the ecosystem the 49ers have built around him on defense, it is far more likely that Bosa returns to delivering production akin to his 18.5-sack season of 2022. Even a slight step back from last year in terms of sack production would be bemusing, and it should not be expected to happen.