Two are All-Pros. One was the runner-up for the AP Arresting Rookie of the Year. The added just accustomed a new $44.5 million, six-year arrangement extension.
Patrick Willis, NaVorro Bowman, Aldon Smith and Ahmad Brooks ability not alone be the bigger acumen abaft the San Francisco 49ers’ arresting success endure season, they anatomy a abutting linebacker accumulation that has bound become the NFL’s new aristocratic unit.
Call them the Fearsome Foursome.
”I anticipate they’re the best bike of 3-4 linebackers in the league,”cheap team usa basketball jerseys Green Bay Packers quarterback and NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers said this week.
He should know.
When the Packers host the 49ers in the regular-season opener for both teams Sunday, the quarterback’s eyes will acceptable be bound into the linebackers added than any added accumulation on the field.
Willis and Bowman, the two All-Pros, accumulated for 235 tackles, 20 canyon deflections, four sacks and four affected fumbles endure season. Smith set a franchise-rookie almanac with 14 sacks to go with two affected fumbles. Brooks, who active a new accord over the summer that will backpack him through the 2017 season, had seven sacks and a affected fumble.
With the linebackers causing chaos, the 49ers led the alliance in hasty defense, angry with the Packers in takeaways and accomplished additional alone to the Pittsburgh Steelers in credibility accustomed per bold en avenue to the NFC championship bold endure season.
”There are absolutely top expectations,” Willis said, ”knowing what we did endure year.”
The success has aswell bred a affable but angry antagonism throughout training affected and preseason practice.
Brooks and Smith are so aggressive on the alfresco they started a bold about who is best, generally babble out ”left side” and ”strong side” afterwards big plays, artful the bolt byword from a arena in the cine ”Remember the Titans.” Even arresting ends Justin Smith and Ray McDonald accept gotten in on the fun.
While the Smiths are generally quieter and adopt to let their play do a lot of of the talking, left-siders Brooks and McDonald can generally be added rambunctious.
”There were guys that said, `Left side! Able side!”’ Brooks said. ”One day endure year Ray was like, `Left side!’ And I was like, `Strong side!’ It ashore with us.”
All four accept the antic antics accept motivated the aegis even more.
”It’s not a rivalry, it’s like a affable competition,” Aldon Smith said. ”We wish to see who can get added than the other. And just get `em period.”
The success aswell has created a band that extends above the field.
Willis and Bowman are basically brothers. The two accept pictures of anniversary added and their families in anniversary of their lockers, and Willis aswell is the asperse to Bowman’s bairn twins.
Sometimes it’s even harder to acquaint who is who amid No. 52 and No. 53 the way both move all over the field.
As attached during training affected endure year, the two abstruse added about anniversary added and the agnate obstacles they had to affected on abstracted paths to NFL stardom.
Bowman, entering just his additional division as a starter, absent his father, Hilliard, to a claret array and his academy drillmaster and mentor, Nick Lynch, to a car blow while Bowman was at Penn State. Willis’ adolescent brother, Detric, drowned at age 17 if Willis was at Mississippi.
”Me and Pat, we are very, actual close,” Bowman said. ”We anticipate of ourselves as one of the best and we accept to accumulate traveling out there and proving it every individual Sunday.”
Willis and Bowman both acclaim Hall of Fame linebacker Mike Singletary – accursed as 49ers drillmaster afterwards the second-to-last bold in 2010 afore Jim Harbaugh took over in January 2011 – for advice aboriginal in their careers. The ”hard-nosed” drillmaster absolute a able plan belief in both, consistently preaching, ”You’re never acceptable enough,” Bowman said.
That aesthetics has accurate able as they’ve acquired into one of the league’s best units.
And with Ray Lewis and abounding Baltimore Ravens veterans in the afterglow of their careers, Willis and Co. are already cartoon comparisons to that vaunted linebacker accumulation in its prime.
San Francisco aegis coordinator Vic Fangio believes the next footfall for his linebackers is to appearance the aforementioned address and brightness for added than one season. While he abundance top acclaim on his arresting leaders, he’s not accessible to bless the Niners linebackers the new NFL standard, abnormally accustomed his history.
Fangio was the linebackers drillmaster for the ”Dome Patrol” Cheap Buffalo Bills Jerseys in New Orleans from 1986-1994. Hall of Famer Rickey Jackson forth with Sam Mills, Vaughan Johnson and Pat Swilling accent that Saints squad.
The aggregation accumulated for 18 Pro Bowls over seven seasons. In 1992, all four fabricated the Pro Bowl.
”I get asked a lot, how do they analyze to the four guys we had in New Orleans?” Fangio said. ”Those four guys started for us in New Orleans for seven beeline years together. Hopefully, we can accept a run like that actuality and already we alpha accomplishing that, two, three, four years, maybe I’ll accept a bigger acknowledgment to that question.”