spoke about his second-year cornerback<\/a> in a way that makes you believe Green isn\u2019t going anywhere anytime soon.<\/p>\nThere is a trio of wide receivers entering make-or-break seasons. We\u2019ll ignore them for this exercise. Coming up with an answer isn\u2019t easy with so many moving parts. Most of the options are either bouncing back from an injury or an uncontrollable situation that directly impacted their play.<\/p>\n
Which 49ers player needs to rebound in 2026?<\/p>\n
My answer: This isn\u2019t easy, as the options are slim pickings and most come with a caveat. But I\u2019m going to go with Malik Mustapha. As a rookie, he allowed a single completion in coverage on 11 targets. Last year, Mustapha\u2019s completion percentage rose to 61 percent. Mustapha had more pass breakups on 10 fewer targets as a rookie than last season. He looked like a steal as a rookie.<\/p>\n
Even if you give Mustapha some grace early on, the consistency was never really there, even in the back half of the season. There is too much talent there for Mustapha not to raise his level of play. That should be the case now that he is a year removed from injury. I\u2019d like to see him get back to being aggressive without sacrificing some bad play. For example, Mustapha\u2019s missed tackle rate jumped roughly seven percent last season.<\/p>\n
The impact plays weren\u2019t there, either–at least not to the level they were as a rookie. Fred Warner\u2019s return should help, as should playing behind the best defensive line of his career. I think the 49ers\u2019 defense has a chance to drastically improve in 2026, and Mustapha\u2019s return to his Year 1 level will be a big reason why.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your answer? Scroll down below and let us know in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Francisco 49ers have addressed a couple of pressing needs ahead of the NFL Draft. Free agency…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,7,6,1161,252,52067,1137,2624,2623],"class_list":{"0":"post-847363","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-49ers","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","13":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-roster","14":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-news","15":"tag-sanfrancisco","16":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116330182086081539","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847363","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=847363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}