Here’s something you don’t hear every day. Attack your opponent’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year as their weak spot.
That’s what former NFL quarterback and current analyst Ryan Leaf suggested the Pittsburgh Steelers do as they preparer to face DE Nick Bosa and the San Francisco 49ers. Bosa, who won the award in 2022, just recently ended a holdout after being made the highest-paid defender in NFL history.
“If I’m them, I’m running Najee Harris right at Nick Bosa every single play they run the ball”, he said during a taping of Good Morning Football yesterday on the NFL Network. “He has not been prepared for anything like that”.
Bosa’s first practice with the team this offseason came just days ago. In an outlier move, the veteran defender orchestrated a traditional holdout in which he sacrificed pay in order to remain away from the team, incurring substantial fines for not reporting to training camp.
Of course, that’s because he knew the light at the end of the tunnel was quite a bit brighter. It was one of his bargaining chips in helping to finalize a five-year, $170 million contract extension, which is beginning to make T.J. Watt’s contract look like chump change.
That was literally three days ago. He has to play a game tomorrow. That’s not a lot of time. That’s not a lot of work in pads. That’s not a lot of hitting. Whatever he was doing on his own, I’m sure he’s in great shape, but he wasn’t playing football, so one can understand at least the strain of logic Leaf employs.
“He’ll be great. He’ll be fine. He’s the highest-paid defensive player ever”, he said of Bosa. “But he’s gonna have a tough time not having had to deal with anything during training camp. So, Najee Harris at him all day long, pulling guards, getting him, kicking him out, figuring out ways to isolate him in the running game”.
Many will point out that Watt similarly was not practicing with the team a couple years ago while negotiating his own monster extension. While he was doing work off to the side on his own, he was not hitting in pads and getting hit. But at least he was around the team and doing everything every other player was except for on-field drills.
Still, Nick Bosa is Nick Bosa. I don’t think he’s suddenly going to be a soft, easy target just because he only has a couple of formal practices under his belt. No doubt he’s been getting himself in great shape for quite some time now.
May he be at his absolute best? Perhaps not. The 49ers may even work with him on some kind of pitch count and ramp up his activity, so maybe the Steelers won’t even have the degree of opportunity to try to take advantage of his level of preparedness. But this may just be a strategy that works better in your head than on the field.
