49ers safety Malik Mustapha will miss extended time recovering from ACL surgery
There's a reason the San Francisco 49ers have added several safeties this offseason: Their attrition-filled 2024 season included more injuries than previously realized.
Safety Malik Mustapha, 2024 fourth-round pick, ended his impressive rookie season by suffering an injury to the ACL he tore in 2022 when he was at Wake Forest, a league source said. The graft that was placed in Mustapha's knee was torn during a loss at Arizona in the regular-season finale and was surgically repaired. Mustapha is expected to be sidelined until the middle of the 2025 season. His injury was first reported by ESPN.
With Mustapha recovering, the 49ers signed safeties Jason Pinnock and Richie Grant in March before they used a fifth-round pick on Kansas State safety Marques Sigle on Saturday.
The 49ers finished last season with Mustapha and Talanoa Hufanga as their starting safeties, but they'll open 2025 with two different players patrolling their back end after Hufanga signed a three-year, $39 million deal with the Broncos in March.
The candidates include Ji'Ayir Brown, a 2023 third-round pick who was supplanted by Mustapha on the depth chart last year and Pinnock, who made 32 starts with the Giants the past two seasons.
The 49ers selected Sigle on Saturday after he bolstered his draft stock by running the 40-yard dash in 4.37 seconds at the combine. Sigle spent his final two seasons at Kansas State and had 123 tackles, 10 behind the line of scrimmage, with four interceptions, one of which he returned for a touchdown.
General manager John Lynch, a Hall of Fame safety with a distinct gait, joked to head coach Kyle Shanahan that he was feeling optimistic after the 49ers selected Sigle.
'Like I told (Shanahan), you can't go wrong with a bow-legged safety,' Lynch said. 'He's played nickel (cornerback). He's a guy who can really run. Watching him on the field, I knew he was fast. I didn't see (4.37). That is a blazing time. He's got a lot of versatility to his game, he's a good tackler.'
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