Denver built Sunday's zero. The hits that left with Bosa were Odighizuwa's
Bo Nix threw 36 of his 42 passes short and was not sacked, which is how Denver plays every week. The number that moved is quarterback hits: 13 on 55 pass plays in the two games Nick Bosa played, 7 on 96 in the two he has missed. Osa Odighizuwa had five of the first 13 and none of the seven.
San Francisco did not sack Bo Nix on Sunday. The official game book credits the 49ers with two quarterback hits on his 42 passes and two scrambles, one by Sebastian Valdez and one by Keion White, and both came in the fourth quarter. Nick Bosa was inactive for the second straight week. The defense still held Denver to one touchdown in a 24-14 win.
The zero was mostly Denver's doing, and the 49ers' plan let it happen. The game book labels 36 of Nix's 42 throws short. That is how Denver plays every week, against a line that had allowed five sacks in three games before Sunday. The number that should worry San Francisco going to Seattle is not sacks. It is hits, and the hits that have disappeared since Bosa got hurt were mostly Osa Odighizuwa's, not Bosa's.
The plan: keep Nix in the pocket and let him throw short#
Kyle Shanahan was asked on Friday how much it mattered to keep Nix in the pocket. "Extremely important," he said. "They do it as much as anyone in the league and I can see why."
On that measure the plan worked. Nix scrambled twice, both on third-and-5. The first, in the second quarter, went 7 yards and moved the chains. The second, in the third, went 3 and Denver punted. A rush built to keep a quarterback inside his tackles gives up the angle that produces sacks, and San Francisco accepted that trade.
Denver met it with the offense it always runs. Of Nix's 42 passes, the game book's play descriptions call 36 short and 6 deep. He completed one of the 6 deep balls, a 30-yarder to Pat Bryant on third-and-6 in the third quarter. In Denver's first three games, ESPN's play-by-play calls 13 of Nix's 93 throws deep. Sunday's share was the same Denver.
Alex Carl's figures for 49ers Webzone on Monday had San Francisco blitzing on 29.5 percent of Nix's dropbacks, with a pressure rate of 43.2 percent. By the game book, Nix dropped back 44 times: 42 passes and two scrambles. A pressure that arrives as the ball leaves is not a sack. Dre Greenlaw, asked after the game about a first-half blitz from Raheem Morris that showed Fred Warner and sent Greenlaw instead: "It was money today, and I wish I had got a sack off of it, but kudos to them for running around and doing what they're supposed to do."
The first half shows what the plan bought. Nix threw 24 passes for 93 yards. Denver converted 6 of 11 third downs and scored three points, because the conversions kept arriving short of anything that hurt. Sean Payton, on his quarterback: "After the first half, then getting into a one-dimensional game, I'm sure he's frustrated."
The pure pass-rush test came at the end, and it returned one hit#
There was one stretch on Sunday where Denver had to throw and San Francisco knew it. The Broncos got the ball at their own 42 with 2:07 left, down 24-14 and needing two scores. They ran seven pass plays. Three went deep. White hit Nix on one of them, a third-and-3 throw to Marvin Mims Jr. that was ruled a 25-yard catch and reversed to an incompletion on replay. Nobody else got there. Denver moved 18 yards and Wil Lutz missed from 58.
The coverage won that drive. The rush got one hit in seven tries when the defense could pin its ears back, and that is the snapshot of the unit without Bosa.
The season says personnel, and the name is not Bosa's#
Across four games, the game books' quarterback-hit column reads like this, counted against opponent pass attempts plus sacks:
- Week 1 against the Rams in Melbourne, Bosa played: 8 hits, no sacks, 28 pass plays.
- Week 2 against Miami, Bosa played: 5 hits, 4 sacks, 27 pass plays.
- Week 3 against Arizona, Bosa out: 5 hits, 2 sacks, 54 pass plays.
- Week 4 against Denver, Bosa out: 2 hits, no sacks, 42 pass plays.
That is 13 hits on 55 pass plays with Bosa and 7 on 96 without him. A hit came about once every four pass plays in the first two games and about once every fourteen in the last two.
Bosa was not the one landing them. He is credited with one of the 13, in Melbourne. Odighizuwa is credited with five: four against the Rams and one against Miami. Against Arizona and Denver he is credited with none. He played 51 of 66 defensive snaps on Sunday, more than any other San Francisco lineman.
Those numbers are consistent with the obvious football reading, that a protection sliding toward Bosa left Odighizuwa single blocks inside and a protection without Bosa to worry about does not. The game book cannot prove that; it records who hit the quarterback, not who drew the double team. Arizona and Denver also both threw short and fast, so two opponents' plans and one absence are tangled in the same 96 plays.
What has not changed is the run defense, and Shanahan pointed to it on Monday. "This is the first time that being in a situation where there's only four guys left out of the 10 guys you started with two weeks prior to that," he said. "So, to have that many new guys, practice squad guys, all those guys getting out there and stepping it up and holding that team in the run game like they did, not giving up the explosives, chasing around a real mobile quarterback."
Denver ran 22 times for 82 yards. Nine linemen played on Sunday and their snaps add to 260 against 66 defensive plays, a four-man front rotating almost every series: Odighizuwa 51, White 49, Romello Height 37, Valdez, Gracen Halton and Ogbo Okoronkwo 25 each, Khalid Kareem 19, Naquan Jones 15 and Matthew Judon 14 in his first game for the club. White has a hit in each of the last three games. Valdez's hit came on his 25 snaps. Judon was not credited with one.
What changed, and what would change it back#
Before kickoff, the case that the rush missed Bosa rested on one game, against an Arizona team that threw 52 times and still went down twice. After Sunday it rests on two games and 96 pass plays, and the drop is in the one column that does not depend on a quarterback holding the ball. That is new.
The reading is wrong if Odighizuwa's hits come back at Seattle with Bosa still out. Shanahan said on Monday he is "probably not expecting" Bosa or James Thompson Jr. back this week. Mykel Williams could be activated off the physically unable to perform list by the end of the week, which would add an edge rusher who has not played this season. Seattle has thrown between 22 and 46 passes a game and has allowed six sacks in four.
The Called Shot: San Francisco's defense is credited with two or fewer quarterback hits in total on the Final Defensive Statistics page of the official game book for its Week 5 game at Seattle on October 11, 2026.
Sources: NFL official game books for Weeks 1 through 4 (San Francisco at Los Angeles Rams, Miami, Arizona and Denver at San Francisco), defensive statistics, team statistics, playtime and play-by-play pages; ESPN box scores and play-by-play for Denver's games against Kansas City, Jacksonville and the Rams and for Seattle's four games; postgame transcripts of Dre Greenlaw and Sean Payton, 49ers Webzone, Oct. 4; Kyle Shanahan's Oct. 5 conference call, transcript via 49ers Webzone; Shanahan's Oct. 2 press conference; Alex Carl, 49ers Webzone, Oct. 5.
