To turn around the 49ers defense, Fred Warner and Nick Bosa had to get vocal

Three behind-the-scenes meetings set the table for the San Francisco 49ers’ course-correcting 30-13 victory over the New England Patriots.

One came Saturday night, when defensive lineman Nick Bosa convened his position group to ensure morale was still good following consecutive losses marred by shoddy defensive play.

“If you’d looked online, you’d think the building is burning down,” Bosa said. “So I told the D-line room last night: ‘We’ve lost some guys, but I haven’t lost confidence in this room one bit.’ And that’s the truth.”

Another meeting came Sunday morning about 90 minutes before kickoff. The 49ers hadn’t even donned their pads yet, but linebacker Fred Warner sensed that his customary huddle needed extra oomph.

“I felt like we needed it, given the situation,” Warner said before breaking into a sly grin in front of his locker. “I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page.”

It wouldn’t be long before Warner dove toward the pylon to cap a 45-yard pick six of New England quarterback Jacoby Brissett, giving the 49ers a commanding 20-0 lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

So it’s fair to say that Warner’s pep talk might’ve served as reinforcement of the third critical meeting, which the 49ers had held Thursday.

That’s a weekly team-wide summit named “The Ball.” It’s now run by assistant head coach Brandon Staley, who took over from last year’s MC, Nick Sorensen, now the defensive coordinator. Its message is simple: generate takeaways and avoid giveaways. But early results in Weeks 1 through 3 hadn’t been great, as the 49ers — who led the NFL in turnover margin over the past two seasons — were mediocre performers in that department.

On Sunday, the 49ers defense clearly bought in, as evidenced by the three takeaways they registered.

After the game, both Warner and defensive lineman Sam Okuayinonu cited one of Staley’s messages: that teams win nearly 100 percent of games in which their defense scores a touchdown.

“So I’m like, we have to score on D,” Warner said.

The linebacker’s determination was evident as he dove toward the pylon to reach pay dirt.

Okuayinonu had gotten the takeaway party started earlier. The third-year player, whom the 49ers had promoted from the practice squad to the 53-man roster the day prior to this game, dislodged the ball from Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson. Defensive tackle Maliek Collins recovered the fumble, and Okuayinonu credited Warner’s tutelage for the strip.

“Fred is a demon punching…the ball out,” he said. “Make the ball a target.”

Later on, Bosa found his way into the mix. He knocked the ball from Brissett during a sack and fell on the fumble to seal the 49ers’ win.

Make no mistake: the 49ers weren’t doing cartwheels after this performance. New England’s pass attack is the least explosive in the NFL, and their offensive line might be the league’s worst in pass protection. The 49ers were heavily favored for a reason, but they also understood the tone-setting importance of a get-right performance on Sunday — hence the pointed meetings leading up to this game.

“We’ve been playing like ass these past couple weeks,” cornerback Charvarius Ward said bluntly in the locker room. “Like real bad.”

The 49ers held the Patriots to just 3.5 yards per play. Perhaps more importantly, their run defense — which had entered this game ranked No. 28 in expected points added per play — held New England to just 73 yards on 24 carries.

That was the most daunting test of the week. The Patriots feature heavy run packages that threatened to trouble a 49ers defense fresh off an injury to defensive tackle Javon Hargrave. The unit then suffered more setbacks when Warner injured his ankle and defensive tackle Jordan Elliott hurt his knee. Neither player was able to return and both must undergo further testing so that the 49ers can gauge their statuses moving forward.

But on Sunday, the defense kept churning without them.

“We know what the standard is,” linebacker De’Vondre Campbell said. “The standard is the standard. No matter who’s out there, you’re expected to play hard, play smart and do the right thing. Fred set the standard. All we try to do is uphold it.”

Perhaps the most encouraging element of the 49ers’ performance came along the defensive line, where Bosa’s belief in the unit’s depth was validated.

Tackle Kevin Givens notched a career-high 2 1/2 sacks. Collins racked up 1 1/2 sacks and registered an explosive tackle for loss. Undrafted rookie Evan Anderson, a temporary call-up from the practice squad, absorbed immediate double teams in his first career action and performed rigidly against them.

And then there was Okuayinonu, who beamed in the locker room after his impactful game — which was particularly disruptive against the run.

“We pride ourselves on our physicality,” Okuayinonu. “We weren’t gonna let them run on us, especially at home.”

A native of Liberia who immigrated to the United States with his mom at the age of 12, Okuayinonu didn’t begin playing football until his senior year of high school. He went undrafted and was cut by the Tennessee Titans in 2023 before the 49ers signed him, seeing a potential late bloomer, to a reserve/future contract in January of this year.

“Adversity is my friend, embrace it,” Okuayinonu said. “When my time was up, I showed up.”

It appears that the 49ers may have unearthed another diamond in the rough.

“He played no more than 15 plays and probably affected 10 of them,” Bosa said of Okuayinonu. “To have a guy like that, to give our starters a rest and have an impact like that, it’s huge for us.”

The 49ers, focused on the big picture here, know that they’ll need to assemble a collection of similar performances to shepherd this defense — one with several new faces to go along with superstars of real pedigree — into a title-caliber unit.

And while the two-game losing streak showed the difficulty of the task in front of the 49ers, this win over the Patriots highlighted the possibilities for the unit moving forward.

“It’s not a burden,” Warner said. “It’s an opportunity. I was excited from the moment we got all the new guys that we did this offseason because of what they bring to our team and to the defense.

“The opportunity is to continue to build cohesion and chemistry amongst the group. I think the best teams are the ones that are the closest. I know that doesn’t happen overnight. We’ve got to continue to try to find that closeness as a team, as a defense. And I feel the more we do that, the better we’re going play and the better product we’re going to put on the field.”

Sunday’s product, preceded by those three key meetings, validated Warner’s thinking. His epic sprint to the end zone didn’t harm that cause, either.