Fred Warner Gets Brutally Honest About 49ers’ Defense In Playoffs

Fred Warner and the San Francisco 49ers ranked eighth in defense during the regular season, so you wouldn’t have expected their defense to be an issue in the playoffs.

However, Warner is not happy with his club’s defensive effort.

“Not good enough at all,” Warner said, via David Bonilla of 49ers Webzone. “The standard has been what it has been for as long as I’ve been here. And we’ve relied heavily on winning games on defense, holding teams to minimal points, suffocating teams, dictating how the game is going to go based off of how we go.”

Through their first two playoff games, the 49ers are allowing 386 yards per game. In the NFC Championship Game, they were gashed for 442 yards by the Detroit Lions and surrendered 24 points in the first half.

Now, it should be noted that San Francisco held the Lions to just seven points over the final two quarters, but the fact that Detroit scored at will before halftime is concerning.

Warner added that the Kansas City Chiefs may be “looking at the tape and thinking they have a great opportunity ahead” in preparation for their matchup against Warner and the Niners in the Super Bowl.

The 49ers permitted just 303.9 yards per game during the regular season and gave up a rather modest 330 yards against the Green Bay Packers in the Divisional Round, so perhaps the team’s shaky first-half performance against the Lions was just a blip on the radar.

But one thing if for sure: San Francisco is going to need to figure out just what went wrong against Detroit early on, or else Patrick Mahomes will exploit those weaknesses and pick the Niners apart next Sunday.

Fred Warner racked up 132 tackles, 2.5 sacks, four interceptions, four forced fumbles and 11 passes defended during the regular season en route to his third Pro Bowl nod and his third First-Team All-Pro selection.