48ers defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans’ message was clear Thursday: “Self-Inflicted penalties will kill you, so we have to do a better job of just playing smarter, continue with the same relentless effort, the mindset, but we just have to play smarter on a few of those penalties where you guys saw.”
Repeatedly, Ryans mentioned the self-imposed mistakes by the defense. Yet, at the same time, Ryans didn’t seem like someone overly concerned that we’d see the same results moving forward.
A part of that can be contributed to the play of safety Talanoa Hufanga, who Ryans said played well on multiple occasions: “He flew around, he played with the type of energy, the tenacity, the grit that you would hope for, he stuck out amongst the entire group, just his style of play and I’m very happy with the way he played.