It\u2019s been that way so far for Marques Sigle<\/a>, a fifth-round draft pick out of Kansas State who appears to have an inside track to be a starting safety Week 1 on the road against the Seattle Seahawks.<\/p>\n It will either be Sigle and Jason Pinnock<\/a>, Sigle and Ji\u2019Ayir Brown<\/a>, or Pinnock and Brown. The 49ers are in the extremely early stages of game-planning for Seattle on Sept. 7, so Sigle\u2019s probably got a good idea already whether he\u2019s starting or not.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not his story to tell yet, so Sigle offered up no hints Thursday following a brief practice.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever comes that day, it happens and that\u2019s out of my control,\u201d Sigle said. \u201cMy control is going out there each and every day, not making the same mistakes and getting one percent better. My goal is to be a starter. If it doesn\u2019t happen, it\u2019s OK, but I\u2019m working for that every day. I just want to win and contribute any way I can. That\u2019s all that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n Pinnock played in 12 games in his rookie season with the New York Jets under Saleh as a head coach and he knows the territory.<\/p>\n \u201cJason definitely taught me they\u2019re just going to have you on the fly,\u201d Sigle said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to change things up before practice because they want to see what you can handle and that\u2019s what makes the defense better.\u201d<\/p>\n A.P. Photo<\/p>\n Marques Sigle (21) tackles a Colorado running back while playing safety in 2024 for Kansas State.<\/p>\n The 49ers have 11 rookies on the 53-man roster \u2014 10 members of their draft class plus undrafted free agent center\/guard Drew Moss.<\/p>\n It may turn out that Sigle has a bigger impact early on than any of them, which isn\u2019t something anyone expected when he missed most of the offseason program after core surgery. Sigle has proved to be such a quick study he was able to self-correct during Thursday\u2019s practice even before Saleh got any words out.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were talking about how to play a certain route concept,\u201d Saleh said. \u201cHe basically cut me off to talk about what his technique was, what he could have done better, where he was in the play, and you come back and watch the play really quick and it\u2019s like, \u2018All right, he\u2019s recalling it, he\u2019s understanding it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The sooner Sigle can diagnose a defense, the sooner he can do what he does best \u2014 run and hit. At 5-foot-11, 199 pounds, Sigle doesn\u2019t have the build of a classic thumper, but he\u2019s fearless, an extremely sharp tackler and can play either safety spot whether it\u2019s on the back end or in the box. He\u2019s got 4.37 speed in the 40-yard dash and uses it to get to the ball.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a quality 49ers general manager and Hall of Fame safety John Lynch just loves.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a metric that we call \u2018swarm,\u2019 which is basically when the ball is thrown, how fast can you get to the ball carrier,\u201d Lynch told KNBR-680 during his weekly appearance. \u201cLast year our analytics department named Malik Mustapha \u2018The Sultan of Swarm.\u2019 Nobody in college football got to the ball faster than Malik. This year, `The Sultan of Swarm\u2019 was Sigle.<\/p>\n \u201cI think those translate really well in our defense. When you run a 4.3 (40-yard dash) and are striking people like Sigle, it\u2019s a good combination.\u201d<\/p>\n With a dose of truth serum, it\u2019s easy to see Lynch and Saleh liking the idea of putting Sigle with Mustapha (recovering from an ACL tear) on the back end and having \u201call gas no brakes\u201d corner Upton Stout in the slot for years to come.<\/p>\n Sigle said he was unaware Lynch had christened him a sultan but liked the idea.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to own that because I feel it fits my game,\u201d Sigle said.<\/p>\n Sigle, the No. 160 overall pick, was the 11th safety selected and the eighth player taken by the 49ers at what has been a sweet spot when it comes to the draft.<\/p>\n Among the 49ers in the Shanahan-Lynch era drafted in the fifth round are tight end George Kittle (2017), linebacker Dre Greenlaw (2019), cornerback Deommodore Lenoir (2021) and safety Talanoa Hufanga. All have recently signed lucrative contracts: Kittle and Lenoir with the 49ers, Greenlaw and Hufanga with Denver.<\/p>\n Sigle is uninterested in being typecast as a \u201cstrong\u201d or \u201cfree\u201d safety.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I can hit, I can be in the run fit and even with free safety I can get out there and be in space, guarding, tackling and being able to be a ballhawk,\u201d Sigle said. \u201cThat\u2019s my versatility. I can move around, I can play any position.\u201d<\/p>\n Sigle said thinking back to the beginning of camp, he\u2019s reacting more, thinking less and the game is slowing down for him. Saleh warns it\u2019s going to speed up even more in Week 1.<\/p>\n \u201cAll these rookies if they thought preseason was fast, the regular season is about 100 times faster,\u201d Saleh said. \u201cThe good news is that they\u2019re capable and willing to learn and they\u2019re quick studies, so they\u2019ll be fine as time goes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA CLARA \u2014 The 49ers aren\u2019t into spoon-feeding their rookies a little at a time. Rather, defensive coordinator…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2081],"tags":[220,7,2812,3314,2914,6,6043,238,237,261,2635],"class_list":{"0":"post-329015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-seahawks","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-kyle-shanahan","11":"tag-malik-mustapha","12":"tag-marques-sigle","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-robert-saleh","15":"tag-seahawks","16":"tag-seattle","17":"tag-seattle-seahawks","18":"tag-seattleseahawks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115117641451917304","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Kansas](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/BNG-SIGLE042625.jpg\")
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