In just under a month, the Pittsburgh Steelers will square off with the San Francisco 49ers to kick off the 2023 season at Acrisure Stadium in one of the more marquee opening-week matchups on the NFL schedule.
That matchup could take lose a little luster though if reigning Defensive Player of the Year Nick Bosa is not on the field for the 49ers. Currently, Bosa is holding out of training camp in California due to a contract dispute. As 49ers GM John Lynch stated in late July, Bosa is away from the team as long as a new lucrative long-term deal is not signed.
According to NFL Insider Tony Pauline, that contract dispute could drag into the regular season and potentially lead to Bosa missing games.
“Sources tell me the Bosa situation could last a while and it’s not out of the question the three-time Pro Bowler could miss the start of the season due to the contract dispute,” Pauline writes in a report for sportskeeda.com.
That is rather shocking.
There is just no way the 49ers do not get a deal done with Bosa before the start of the season. They simply cannot go into the regular season without their version of T.J. Watt. In 2022, Bosa was a wrecking ball, recording 18.5 sacks and finished sixth in the NFL MVP voting.
For the most part though, since winning the DPOY award, the 25-year-old Bosa has remained fairly quiet on the contract front while racking up the accolades. Outside of missing most of the 2020 season with a torn ACL, Bosa has been a model of consistency for the Niners defense and is a key building block with a lot of hopes and dreams of a Super Bowl riding on San Francisco’s defense remaining among the league’s best.
In the three other NFL seasons, Bosa has played in 49 of a possible 50 regular-season games while adding in awards for Defensive Rookie of the Year on top of the DPOY award. Bosa has been selected to the Pro Bowl three times and been named first-team All-Pro once.
