Nick Wagoner
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — For the better part of the past five months, new San Francisco 49ers defensive end Bryce Huff expected the Philadelphia Eagles to trade him.
Huff didn’t know when it would happen or where he would land, but as he continued working out and waiting, he began hoping for a few potential destinations.
Included on that short list was a reunion with defensive coordinator Robert Saleh in San Francisco. On May 30, Huff got his wish as the Eagles traded him to the Niners for a conditional fifth-round pick in the 2026 NFL draft.
“I had a few places in mind that I definitely was hoping to get traded,” Huff, a sixth-year pass rusher, said Wednesday. “All I was doing was just working out, just staying in my routine as best as possible. Waiting to hear that call, and thankfully it was to San Francisco, because I’m very familiar with this scheme.”
Huff’s trade from Philadelphia also meant getting away from a scheme that just never quite seemed to suit him as well as the one he played in under Saleh in New York from 2021 to 2023.
After a breakout ’23 season with the Jets in which he posted a career-high 10 sacks and 68 pressures on 312 pass-rush snaps — good for a 21.8% pressure rate that was the best in the NFL, according to Next Gen Stats — Huff signed a three-year, $51 million deal with the Eagles in 2024 free agency.
But coordinator Vic Fangio’s preferred defensive scheme removed Huff from the hand-in-the-dirt, wide-9 technique he’d played under Saleh and asked him to stand up as an outside linebacker more often.
“If you’re born into a hand-in-the-ground defense, it’s an adjustment period to turn yourself into a standup outside linebacker role and vice versa,” 49ers defensive line coach Kris Kocurek said. “It’s not snap your fingers and hey, go to a different scheme. And now you’ve primarily been successful throughout your career with your hand in the dirt going vertical and now you’re standing up. It’s a difference.”
The result was disappointing for all parties, as Huff finished last season with 13 tackles and 2.5 sacks in 12 games.
“I learned a lot about myself throughout that experience, but it just didn’t work out at the end of the day,” Huff said. “You live and you learn. All I focus on is what I’m doing right now, and that’s being a 49er and doing everything I can to help this team win.”
While Huff has been in San Francisco for only a little less than two weeks, he has already made a strong impression upon jumping back into Saleh’s defense. Huff isn’t expected to become an every-down end opposite star pass rusher Nick Bosa, but the team has a clearly defined role for him that centers on rushing the passer.
San Francisco went through a significant renovation in the defensive line room in the offseason, cutting all three starters: tackles Javon Hargrave and Maliek Collins and end Leonard Floyd.
The 49ers rebuilt the defensive line in the draft, using the 11th pick on end Mykel Williams as well as second- and fourth-round selections on tackles Alfred Collins and C.J. West. Williams is expected to win the starting job opposite Bosa but has the versatility to kick inside in obvious pass-rush situations, which would open the door for Huff to do what he does best.
“I think highly of him as a pass rusher,” Saleh said. “He wins at such a high rate. A lot of times when you look at pass rushers, you look at sacks. Sacks are important, they end drives, and it’s what ultimately gets these guys paid. But his disruption rate in getting the quarterback off the spot and the way he can do it. … He wins so quickly so often that coordinators have to account for his presence.”
That type of speedy presence is something the Niners have been seeking for much of the past five years. They’ve plugged in a variety of pass rushers such as Samson Ebukam, Drake Jackson and Floyd with varying degrees of success.
But none has risen to the level of the edge rusher who best complemented Bosa in his rookie season of 2019: Dee Ford. It’s a name that coach Kyle Shanahan and left tackle Trent Williams both invoked unprompted on Tuesday when asked about Huff.
“When you talk about just getting off the ball and how fast he does it, he will be our best get-off-the-ball guy we’ve had since Dee Ford,” Shanahan said. “It’s good to beat tackles that way but also widens tackles to help with the inside pass rush and things like that, and he affects the quarterback.”
Huff doesn’t mind the comparison and noted Wednesday in his first session with Bay Area media that Saleh used to show him clips of Ford as a template for what he believed Huff could eventually become.
The hope now is that a new beginning in a familiar scheme can help Huff rediscover the formula that turned him from undrafted free agent out of Memphis in 2020 to 2024’s $51 million man.
“I always kind have that [chip] on my shoulders because of how I came into the NFL,” Huff said. “I can’t wait to get back out there on game days and get off out of my stance, get after the quarterback, stop the run, just be violent. That’s all I’m thinking about.”
