Throughout the offseason, the San Francisco 49ers have frequently been linked to free agent edge rusher Joey Bosa. The pairing has made sense on paper, as it would give Joey the chance to line up alongside his younger brother, Nick Bosa, while also addressing San Francisco’s need for additional depth on the edge.
Despite the ongoing speculation, Joey Bosa remains unsigned, and no deal has come together with the 49ers or any other team. Despite the speculation on his future, the veteran pass rusher showed last season with the Buffalo Bills that he has plenty left in the tank.
During the 2025 season, the former Bills pass rusher played 563 snaps, leading to a 79.3 overall PFF defensive grade. He generated 47 total pressures as a pass rusher, including five sacks, 30 hurries, and 12 hits. Against the run, he recorded 22 solo tackles while forcing five fumbles on the season.
With training camp underway for the 49ers, Jake Beckman of FanSided noted eight moves he wants to see before the start of the 2026 NFL season, and one of them is the older Bosa signing with the Niners.
“You either like both of the Bosa brothers or you don’t like both of the Bosa brothers,” Beckman wrote in a July 25 article. “There’s no in-between. That’s what makes a signing like this perfect for everyone.
“For the Anti-Bosa crowd, you want this because it’s so much easier to just rein in your hatred and disdain for one franchise. You could just say, ‘Dude, Bosa sucks,’ and everyone knows that you’d be talking about the one on the 49ers. Also, it’s exhausting to keep track of everyone you don’t like. Consolidating them is so much more efficient.”
Joey Bosa Would Give 49ers Needed Depth at Edge Position
Moreover, it doesn’t appear as though the Niners will make a splashy move to improve their pass rush, at least not right now, so Beckman believes that adding depth to help out in the rotation would be an ideal move for San Francisco to start the 2026 season.
“For the 49ers, this would give them a little bit more depth on their edge rusher rotation,” Beckman added in his article. “It’s clear that Joey Bosa’s best days are behind him, but he’s still getting the job done.
“Last season with the Bills, he was pretty efficient. He played 64.3 percent of the snaps last season and had a 13.9 percent pressure rate. He wasn’t getting a whole lot of sacks, but he got his hurries and QB knockdowns, and he led the NFL in forced fumbles (5).”
Niners Insider on Joey Bosa Potentially Retiring
Recently, NFL insider Adam Schefter revealed that the player might be leaning toward retirement. Despite that update, Niners beat reporter for SI, Grant Cohn, believes this is a negotiating tactic by the former Los Angeles Chargers star rather than a genuine consideration of retirement.
“Doesn’t this feel like a negotiating tactic?” Cohn said in a June 26 video on his YouTube channel. “It also feels like stalling, man. If I were 30, I don’t know. I didn’t play football. I probably wouldn’t want to do training camp either. I’d probably prefer to play golf.
“Also, with these seasons getting so long, if I already had $100 million, maybe I’d be cool to do the Philip Rivers thing where you just sort of slide in, wait around, survey the landscape, pick a team that is good, and then join that team as opposed to trying to figure out which team’s going to be good in June, what team this season, months from now, is going to be good. Getting it wrong and they’re wasting your time.”
49ers Receive Blunt Joey Bosa Message Amid Training Camp