NFL's old-school safeties love 49ers' old-soul enforcer Malik Mustapha: ‘I get excited'

Rodney Harrison. Darren Woodson. Ryan Clark. Brian Dawkins.

They are all accomplished, old-school safeties who played in a bygone era. It was before NFL rule changes and the proliferation of pass-happy offenses made molar-rattling intimidators lurking along the back of defenses almost extinct.

Given that, The Big Hitter Brotherhood didn't expect to be adding any modern-day members.

But Malik Mustapha, 24, the San Francisco 49ers' old-soul safety who lights up opponents like it's 1999? Yeah, the kid's in the club.

Harrison, 53, then an NBC analyst, was at Levi's Stadium last season when Mustapha, 5-foot-10 and 206 well-sculpted pounds, delivered a hit that sent Falcons' 225-pound running back Tyler Allgeier walking gingerly to the sideline with aching ribs. Harrison was so excited to start discussing Mustapha this week that the first player with 30 sacks and 30 interceptions in a career interrupted a reporter's initial question on the subject.

"Let me just talk," Harrison said. "Let me just say this: When I watch this kid, I get excited. Oh, I get excited about the way he plays!"

Woodson, 57, is similarly moved by the young man known as "The Missile." After Mustapha detonated on Stefon Diggs on Monday night - sending the Commanders' wide receiver to the sideline with a disfigured right middle finger - the former Cowboys All-Pro leapt from his seat at home in Dallas as Diggs landed on his in Santa Clara.

"Oh my god," Woodson said. "I came out of my chair. I'm wishing this kid the best because that's how you play football. And I'm a freaking Cowboy who can't stand the 49ers. But Mustapha? Oh, no, I'll watch him play all day long."

Clark, 47, a Pro Bowl selection and Super Bowl champion, isn't just a long-distance fan. He's a friend. They've stayed in touch throughout his career after Mustapha reached out to Clark for advice as a rookie. Clark quickly responded this week when asked about Mustapha.

"We texted yesterday," Clark wrote. "Love him!"

It's not just Mustapha reaching out to the old guard. Dawkins, 53, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, has hit Mustapha up to encourage him to keep up his hellacious hitting.

The old-head respect is deeply meaningful to Mustapha. He wore a Ronnie Lott jersey to his first preseason home game in 2024, although Mustapha was born eight years after Lott's 14-year career ended. He admired Clark (who retired when Mustapha was 12) because he formed a "lethal duo" with Troy Polamalu in Pittsburgh.

When praise from Woodson and Harrison was relayed to Mustapha after Thursday's practice, he smiled, shook his head, termed it "surreal" and excitedly added that even an offensive player, former Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson, 48, shouted him out this week on social media: "Malik Mustapha, that's the way you play the safety position young bull."

Did Mustapha see that former NFL cornerback Jason McCourty sent out a similar message?

"Oh, man, that's cool, too," Mustapha said, smiling.

Mustapha is employed by the 49ers because another Hall of Fame safety from the bygone era, general manager John Lynch, became smitten before selecting him with a fourth-round pick. After Mustapha was drafted, Lynch said Mustapha was built like an "Adonis" and met ball-carries with "bad intentions."

Lynch spent five seasons with then-linebackers coach Lovie Smith in Tampa Bay. Woodson, a linebacker in college, counted Smith as his position coach at Arizona State. Old safeties speak the same language.

"Lovie Smith would say, ‘I want you to run to the ball and when you get there have bad intentions,'" Woodson said. "And Mustapha's got bad intentions. He wants to do damage when he hits you."

Woodson recalls that every NFL secondary had a linebacker-sized enforcer who would "knock your teeth in the back of your throat" when he was a rookie in 1992. In 1996, the NFL began penalizing helmet-to-helmet hits, the first of several safety-related rules changes introduced over the next 15 years. In Woodson's last season (2003), Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells told Woodson and fellow safety Roy Williams: "The day of the strong safety is damn near dead."

"He was telling us that the game is changing and the guy that's just a hard hitter, and that's all he can do, he's becoming a liability," Woodson said. "The guy that's a headhunter and can't cover, he can't play. What's happened over the years is people have looked at the safety position and identified guys who are versatile.

"Maybe he's a middle-of-the-field guy. They can get sideline to sideline. It's speed. It's swiftness. Otherwise, offenses are going to spread you out, figure out where you are and come after you. It's about having other capabilities other than being a big hitter. Those days are done."

Mustapha showcased the speed a modern safety needs on a 3rd-and-3 play late in the fourth quarter of the 49ers' 23-17 win against Washington on Monday. Running back Jeremy McNichols hit a gaping hole before Mustapha whacked him into neutral after sprinting eight yards to reach the line of scrimmage. Pain. No gain.

"He's still playing within the framework of the rules, and it's just fantastic to be able to do that and still play with such physicality," Harrison said. "You just don't see it happening very often. When teams watch tape, I guarantee you it's like, ‘Hey, man, you better watch where No. 6 is at all times.' That's something that affects the offense. I promise you the quarterback is saying, ‘I won't throw you that ball coming across the middle if No. 6 is there.'"

Harrison said Mustapha's height has helped him avoid helmet-to-helmet blows, but Mustapha hasn't been flawless. He was fined $6,998 for a hit on Seahawks wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba in Week 5. He could be fined for his hit on Diggs on Monday. Neither collision drew a flag.

"I never want to lead with my helmet," Mustapha said. "But there's a lot of times where it's like a bang-bang play, I'm going so fast and I can't stop myself. I'm not going out there to obliterate or really try to hurt somebody. But, you know, at the end of the day, there's going to be two outcomes. And I want to be on the positive side of that outcome."

Harrison and Woodson both noted Mustapha would be wise to not go full throttle on every tackle. 

"The one thing I had to learn as a young player: Every hit doesn't have to be a knockout," said Harrison, who had a 15-season career. "You have to sometimes live to see another day. I was a violent player. But there's times to be violent and there's times to just get the guy down."

The bad news for opponents? This might not be the time for Mustapha to start taking tackles off considering he was recently a second-stringer. He suffered a severe hamstring injury in training camp and was leapfrogged on the depth chart by Marques Sigle, a 2025 fifth-round pick who started the first four games before suffering a high ankle sprain.

After starting 22 games in his first two seasons, Mustapha's performance in the past two games strongly suggests he's not going back to the bench. He had the game-sealing tackle in a 32-29 win at Seattle and added a massive late-game fourth-down pass breakup to secure the victory over Washington while making a series of high-decibel tackles.

He's unlikely to relinquish his first-string role. Just in case, however, he's likely to keep hitting opponents with everything he's got. His fan club recommends discretion, but otherwise the plan sounds good to the Big Hitter Brotherhood.

"It's one thing to be a safety that hits you in the middle of the field on a crossing route when a guy can't see you," Woodson said. "No, this guy is making eye contact with you and he's made a business decision to knock your ass back. He's playing the game the way it should be played, man. That's fun."

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This article originally published at NFL's old-school safeties love 49ers' old-soul enforcer Malik Mustapha: ‘I get excited'.