Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a>Malik Mustapha: B-<\/p>\nMustapha missed the first five games of the season on the PUP list while recovering from an old ACL injury that he reaggravated in Week 18 of the 2024 season. He returned and immediately grabbed his starting job back, finishing with a career-high 76 tackles, three passes defensed and an interception. His physical presence makes the back-end of the defense feel more complete.<\/p>\n
Jason Pinnock: C<\/p>\n
With Mustapha sidelined early, Pinnock was a starter early in the season, but his opportunities dropped off after Week 5. He still contributed in a rotational role and on special teams for the remainder of the season, appearing in all 17 games and finishing with 41 tackles. Pinnock’s season can be described as perfectly mediocre, as he didn’t stand out positively or negatively.<\/p>\n
Marques Sigle: C-<\/p>\n
Sigle was also a starter at the beginning of the season, playing a majority of the team’s defensive snaps through five weeks. However, Mustapha’s return sent him to the bench after Week 8, as he played just 10 defensive snaps for the remaining 10 weeks of the season. He finished with 52 tackles, one pass defensed and one fumble recovery. The 23-year-old is pretty raw, but if he can clean up some of the noticeable flaws in his game, he could take on Pinnock’s role in 2026 as a rotational safety.<\/p>\n
More 49ers: Why Christian McCaffrey’s huge year could be bad news for 49ers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 17, 2026, 6:50 p.m. PT The San Francisco 49ers fought hard in 2025 to finish the regular…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[243,1184,101,103,102,104,106,105,10224,10225,378,507,6324,65727,370,34807,366,374,259,1349,11376,6321,367,6330,13084,510,377,246],"class_list":{"0":"post-182435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-san-francisco","11":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","12":"tag-san-francisco-news","13":"tag-sf","14":"tag-sf-headlines","15":"tag-sf-news","16":"tag-sstssportsnflniners","17":"tag-sstsnniners","18":"tag-tagamerican-football","19":"tag-tagcalifornia-gold-rush","20":"tag-tagcarolina-panthers","21":"tag-tagjason-pinnock","22":"tag-tagjiayir-brown","23":"tag-tagmalik-mustapha","24":"tag-tagnfl","25":"tag-tagnfl-hub","26":"tag-tagoverall-negative","27":"tag-tagoverall-positive","28":"tag-tagphiladelphia-eagles","29":"tag-tagsan-francisco","30":"tag-tagsan-francisco-49ers","31":"tag-tagseattle-seahawks","32":"tag-tagsmg-listicle","33":"tag-tagsport-scores-statistics","34":"tag-tagsports-news","35":"tag-typestory"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}