Kawakami: 49ers defense is best in league, maybe team’s best ever — statistical

The Week 5 edition of my 49ers Reality Check series …

Is this the best 49ers defense of the Kyle Shanahan era? Or maybe the best in even longer than that, back to the Jim Harbaugh/Vic Fangio days or, dare we say it, the golden Bill Walsh/George Seifert/Ronnie Lott era? Hard to say for sure after just four games in the 2022 season. Maybe.

Given the present evidence, this unit’s potential ranking is certainly worth discussing, with a chance at a “yes, the best” answer if all goes successfully for the 49ers over the next several months.

It’s also quite possible that the 2022 49ers defense gets smoked a few times as the level of competition ramps up and then nobody will be talking about ranking this edition anywhere near the top of anything. That is always true. You never know about all-time greatness until you know, which is usually when the team is in the Super Bowl. Even then, you’d better wait until after the fourth quarter is over. (Just ask the 2019 49ers.)

But there are a couple of clearer conclusions already possible: This is probably the best defense in the league right now, which automatically means it might be able to carry even the wobbliest offense into January; it’s also the most complete, front-to-secondary 49ers defense since Shanahan arrived in 2017, and that includes the 2019 team that crushed a lot of opponents and led the franchise to a berth in Super Bowl 54.

This team doesn’t have DeForest Buckner, Dee Ford or Richard Sherman, for sure. But Buckner was the only one of those three who was in his prime in 2019; and the 2022 unit has a deeper defensive line, more seasoned linebackers (in 2019,