49ers Pass Rush Takes Early Hit as Mykel Williams Lands on PUP List

The San Francisco 49ers are officially starting their 2026 season with their pass rush on layaway. According to Adam Schefter, the team has placed defensive lineman Mykel Williams on the Reserve/Physically Unable to Perform list, guaranteeing he will miss at least the first four games of the year.

This is the kind of roster update that sounds like standard preseason housekeeping until you look at the actual state of the San Francisco defense. The 49ers finished last season with exactly 20 sacks as a team. That was dead last in the NFL, a number so low it feels like a typo for a franchise that usually treats opposing quarterbacks like tackling sleds.

"Adam Schefter reported the roster move, noting Williams will be sidelined for at least the first four games."

Williams was supposed to be a massive part of fixing that problem. The former 11th overall pick out of Georgia flashed potential during his rookie campaign before tearing his ACL in Week 9 against the New York Giants.

Of course, that injury happened on the infamous MetLife Stadium turf, a surface that has historically treated 49ers defensive linemen with the same hospitality a woodchipper gives a tree branch.

Head coach Kyle Shanahan had already warned reporters that Williams was a longshot for Week 1, but the PUP designation makes the absence concrete. Now, a defensive front desperate for juice has to survive the first month of the season without one of its most talented young edge rushers.

This puts an uncomfortable amount of pressure on Nick Bosa, who is returning from his own 2025 ACL tear and is currently battling training camp tendinitis. If you are looking at NFC West futures or San Francisco defensive props, you have to factor in a September where the pass rush is held together by athletic tape and optimism.

The 49ers do not have a ton of margin for error in a brutal division. Williams will be eligible to return after four weeks, but until he actually gets back on the field, opposing offenses are going to have a lot more time to get comfortable in the pocket.