On Sunday, about quarter-hour after the San Francisco 49ers’ 38-17 beatdown of the Raiders, Fred Warner had simply completed a dwell interview with NBC Sports activities Bay Space exterior the staff’s locker room when members of the All-Professional linebacker’s fan membership approached.
A 15-year-old boy carrying Warner’s No. 54 had a request: May Warner signal the again of his jersey? Achieved. Then a 14-year-old boy wished a selfie. Warner posed.
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There was extra. However Warner needed to lower it brief. He was on a decent deadline. He apologized – “Sorry, I’ve acquired to get going” – and he jogged to the locker room, the place he later defined to a reporter why he’d appeared slightly harried. His spouse, Sydney, was ready with their 2-year-old son, Beau, and 10-month-old daughter, Bella.
“I needed to rush,” Warner defined, “as a result of my spouse tells me I at all times take too lengthy to get to the fam.”
The scene of Warner, a semi-flustered husband operating behind, was proof: One of many NFL’s most instinctive defensive gamers can really get out of place.
Warner, 29, capped the newest virtuoso efficiency in a season that is been filled with them, by, once more, enjoying like he spent the afternoon within the opponent’s huddle. With 5 minutes remaining, Warner, patrolling the center of the sector, started operating to his left, towards operating again Ashton Jeanty, as quarterback Kirk Cousins was scanning the sector.
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The outcome: It appeared like Warner knew Cousins was going to throw a display screen move earlier than Cousins did. Warner dumped Jeanty for a 7-yard loss.
The nine-year veteran was requested in regards to the play as he walked to the auditorium for his postgame information convention.
“It is a product of simply enjoying ball for therefore lengthy now,” Warner mentioned. “So it is simply the movie examine with the power to play off instincts. The sport has slowed right down to a special degree the place I can actually take my probabilities and attempt to make extra performs. However throughout the scheme although, proper? It is not me making an attempt to do something additional.”
Whereas not doing something additional, Warner had a unprecedented, 10-minute, second-half stretch Sunday. First, with the 49ers main 28-17 halfway by way of the third quarter, he used his patented right-hand punch to pop the ball from the grasp of tight finish Brock Bowers, forcing a fumble linebacker Dre Greenlaw recovered on the 49ers’ 31-yard line.
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Las Vegas’ subsequent possession: Warner recovered tight finish Michael Mayer’s fumble ultimately zone. The Raiders’ subsequent drive: On first-and-goal on the 1, Warner completely timed his Superman leap on a QB sneak, hovering over heart Tyler Linderbaum to drill Cousins simply as he acquired the snap, dropping him for a 2-yard loss.
It saved six factors: Cousins tossed an interception one snap later. The highlight-reel play wowed two Professional Bowl teammates: defensive deal with DeForest Buckner and move rusher Nick Bosa.
“I circled and me and Nick had been simply laughing,” Buckner mentioned, “It is like, ‘Holy, crap. That is fairly cool.'”
The leap was harking back to the over-the-line dives as soon as made by Pittsburgh’s Troy Polamalu, the final security to win the NFL’s Defensive Participant of the Yr award (2010). Warner’s newest efficiency raises the query: May he develop into the primary linebacker to win the award since Carolina’s Luke Kuechly in 2013?
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Contemplate: Warner is tied for the NFL lead with 5 pressured fumbles, placing him on tempo to interrupt the all-time report of 10 held by Osi Umenyiora and Charles Tillman. As well as, Warner ranks fifth within the NFL with 77 tackles, and his 164-tackle tempo would shatter his career-high (137).
“He is enjoying out of his thoughts. Insane,” defensive deal with Osa Odighizuwa mentioned. “I imply, even when I wasn’t his teammate, simply seeing the performances he is placing collectively week in and week out, I would be saying he is having a (DPOY) sort of season, for certain.”
When requested about his DPOY candidacy, Warner mirrored on the place he was 13 months in the past, after he’d suffered a season-ending damaged ankle in a Week 6 loss at Tampa Bay. Having soccer ripped from him was excruciating. He’d missed one recreation in his first seven seasons. After his grueling rehab, Warner returned with a concentrate on feeling the enjoyment that got here from being again on the sector.
That’s, after beforehand writing down his targets earlier than every season, a DPOY award is not on his thoughts.
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“That is the primary yr I did not write something down by way of what I wished to perform,” Warner mentioned. “A yr in the past, I used to be relearning the right way to stroll, you see what I am saying? So each time I get to go on the market and play this recreation once more – after what occurred to me final yr – that is by far the largest blessing on the planet.
“The truth that I get to exit right here and play this recreation with a smile on my face and have the followers chant my title, see (No.) 54s on the market, like all that’s so price it. I could not care much less about no matter else goes on on the surface.”
On Sunday, Warner was in place to get better Mayer’s fumble ultimately zone after the tight finish’s 24-yard catch as a result of he ran to the ball. Once more. Warner wasn’t masking Mayer, however he trailed the play and pounced on the unfastened ball after cornerback Upton Stout punched it free.
The play was illustrative of the hassle that many teammates cite as Warner’s most spectacular high quality. Odighizuwa, move rusher Keion White and rookie linebacker Jaden Dugger – none of whom performed with Warner earlier than this season – had been requested Sunday if that they had a deeper appreciation for Warner after seeing him up shut.
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“Having excessive effort is in my DNA, it is positively one thing ingrained in me,” Odighizuwa mentioned. “However then simply seeing Fred firsthand, I imply, it simply makes you need to take it to a different degree.”
Mentioned Dugger: “I imply, as a rookie coming in, I am seeing the most effective gamers within the NFL operating to the ball each play. So why cannot I try this? How can I not give additional effort? Fred Warner is doing it. So I am not too good for that.”
After White joined the refrain, he was requested what was so onerous about operating to the ball each snap. Sounds form of easy.
“Consistency is tough as a human,” White mentioned. “It is onerous to be constant in something.”
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Off the sector, nonetheless, it seems that Warner had been persistently tardy attending to his spouse and two youngsters after house video games this season.
On Sunday, after Warner’s information convention, he acknowledged a throng of followers shouting his title exterior the auditorium and shared a short handshake with an acquaintance. However in any other case, he by no means broke stride, strolling briskly down the hallway earlier than turning left by way of double doorways, a linebacker who, as at all times, knew precisely the place he wanted to be.
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This text initially printed at Fred Warner’s demolition of Raiders leaves 49ers in awe: ‘He is enjoying out of his thoughts’.
