As a rookie, Deforest Buckner set some pretty high expectations for himself. He wanted six sacks and 70 tackles. He finished on point with six sacks and 73 tackles. That was not an underachieving expectation either; only a handful of rookies finished with seasons better than that. Despite all the fundamentals like run-stopping and pad level he had to work on, Buckner has made himself a solid pick for the San Francisco 49ers with those stats and he can only get better.
The one thing to consider with those stats though, is Buckner played a lot. At over 1,000 snaps, Buckner seemed to be doing iron mans every Sunday keeping up with Chip Kelly’s fast-paced offense.