Malik Mustapha made the play that held up the San Francisco 49ers' Week 6 win, slamming Treylon Burks to the turf on a fourth-down end zone throw from Jayden Daniels and forcing a turnover on downs. The stop came on the Washington Commanders' second-to-last drive and preserved a narrow lead in a game the 49ers needed to finish on defense.
That matters because the play was made by the defender the 49ers selected with the 2024 fourth-round draft pick tied to Trey Lance. Lance was taken third overall, did not deliver on that billing, and the 49ers won only one of the three games he started in their uniform. One of those starts ended in a 23-7 win over the 4-12 Texans, with the defense carrying the day, and the next year he started once more before getting hurt in the beginning of Week 2 against the Seahawks. Jimmy Garoppolo filled in until Week 13, then Brock Purdy took over and never looked back.
That chain of events is why Lance still follows the 49ers into conversations about present-day value. His exit helped set up the draft capital that became Mustapha, and Mustapha is already using it. PFF has him as the seventh-best safety in the NFL thus far in 2026, and he has 20 tackles and three pass deflections to go with the one stop that decided a one-score Week 6 game. The defense was at its sharpest when the offense had gone quiet, and Mustapha was the one who made sure the lead survived.
The unanswered question is not whether the 49ers found value from that draft pick. They did. It is how many more plays like this Mustapha can turn into while the memory of Lance's failed tenure keeps making the old draft mistake part of the story.
