> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.statsdigest.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# The San Francisco Pass Defense Has Fallen Three Straight Years
- URL: https://www.statsdigest.com/san-francisco-pass-defense-three-year-decline-2022-2025/
- Published: 2026-09-02T11:30:23.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-02T11:30:22.000Z
- Description: San Francisco's pass defense has ranked worse than the year before it in each of the last three seasons.
- Author: Bill Seifert
- Tags: 49ers, pass defense, EPA, NFL defense, Sack Rate, 2025 NFL

The defensive identity of the Shanahan-era 49ers — the unit that carried a 2022 Super Bowl run and has cycled through four defensive coordinators since — did not collapse in 2025\. It has been sliding, in a straight line, for three years.

Sort every NFL defense from 2022 to 2025 by pass EPA per play allowed, rank San Francisco each year, and the shape of the fall is monotonic:

| Season | Pass EPA/play allowed | Rank | Overall def EPA/play | Overall rank |
| ------ | --------------------- | ---- | -------------------- | ------------ |
| 2022   | −0.112                | 2nd  | −0.102               | 1st          |
| 2023   | −0.082                | 8th  | −0.063               | 8th          |
| 2024   | +0.024                | 14th | +0.042               | 24th         |
| 2025   | +0.107                | 25th | +0.070               | 23rd         |

That is a **+0.219 EPA-per-play swing** on pass defense in three years, from the second-best mark in the league to 25th, and it dragged the overall unit from #1 to #23\. There is no single-year cliff to point at. Every step of the fall is a real, ranked data point.

## Table of Contents

- The straight-line slope
- What changed year by year
- Where 2025 broke: pass rush and deep coverage
- What the record hid

## The straight-line slope

Season-to-season deltas in pass EPA/play allowed:

- 2022 → 2023: **+0.031**
- 2023 → 2024: **+0.105**
- 2024 → 2025: **+0.083**

The middle year — the fall from top-10 to middle-of-pack in 2024 — was the largest single-year jump, but the pattern is unbroken. San Francisco has been a worse pass defense than the year before it in each of the last three seasons.

## What changed year by year

**2022** was the model season: 2nd in pass EPA/play allowed, 1st in overall defensive EPA/play. The unit allowed a 60.9% completion rate and 5.93 yards per attempt, ranked 15th in sack rate (44 sacks on 683 dropbacks), and gave up 16.29 points per game on the way to a 13-4 finish.

**2023** softened at the surface but held at the top. Completions allowed ticked up to 61.1% at 5.43 yards per attempt — actually a lower YPA than 2022 — while sack rate slipped to 18th (48 sacks). The middle of the field is where the cracks started: intermediate pass EPA/play allowed climbed to +0.162 (6th-best, down from 9th). Deep balls were still smothered — opponents completed just 29.3% of them for +0.025 EPA/play, 4th in the league. San Francisco went 12–5 and allowed 17.53 points per game.

**2024** is the year the pass defense fell out of the top half. Overall pass EPA/play allowed flipped positive (+0.024, 14th), and the short game — the bread and butter of a zone-heavy shell — became an actual liability at +0.219 EPA/play allowed (26th). Sack rate held at 17th (37 sacks), but points allowed jumped to 25.65 per game and the team finished 6–11.

**2025** finished the slide. Pass EPA/play allowed climbed to +0.107 (25th). Opponents completed 66.0% of throws — up roughly five points from 2022 — at 6.55 yards per attempt, both the worst marks of the four-year window.

## Where 2025 broke: pass rush and deep coverage

Two numbers separate the 2025 unit from its 2024 self.

**The pass rush cratered.** San Francisco's sack rate dropped from 6.26% in 2024 to **3.21% in 2025 — 32nd in the NFL, dead last.** The previous three seasons the 49ers ranked 15th, 18th, and 17th in sack rate; in 2025 they fell off the bottom of the league. Total sacks fell from 44 (2022) to 48 (2023) to 37 (2024) to just **20** in 2025\. The interception rate collapsed alongside it, from 3.06% in 2023 (22 picks) to 0.96% in 2025 (six picks all season).

**And when opponents threw it deep, they hit.** Deep pass EPA/play allowed (20+ air yards) — the number that had stayed elite even as the underneath game softened — went from **+0.094 (4th) in 2024 to +0.644 (25th) in 2025**. Completion percentage on those deep balls climbed from 30.5% to 36.8%. Intermediate throws (10–19 air yards) allowed +0.387 EPA/play, the worst of the four seasons.

Explosive-pass rate allowed (any pass of 20+ yards) was 7.46% in 2025 — nearly identical to 7.51% in 2022 — but the EPA damage per explosive play was far larger in 2025, which is what tends to happen when the pass rush disappears and quarterbacks get time to sit and pick a spot deep.

## What the record hid

San Francisco went 12–5 in 2025 and allowed 21.82 points per game — a number that looks fine on the standings page and is nearly four points better than 2024's 25.65\. That is not the same thing as playing good pass defense. The offense scored 437 points (up from 389 in 2024), and the pass defense finished 25th by EPA per play on the way to a good record.

The three-year slope is the story, not last season's finish. In 2022 this was the best defense in football. In 2023 it was still top-ten overall but starting to leak in the middle of the field. In 2024 it fell to middle-of-pack with a broken short game. In 2025 the sack rate fell off the bottom of the league and the deep coverage went with it. Nothing about that path is a one-year fluke — every step was a real, ranked drop. In my read, a return to the 2022 baseline would require rebuilding the pass rush from the front end, not just patching the secondary — though that's a judgment call the trend data alone doesn't settle.