Nick Bosa: Insight into how the San Francisco 49ers' NFL defensive player-of-the-year candidate psyches himself up

But Nick Bosa of the San Francisco 49ers has a bizarre and unique way of psyching himself up.

The 25-year-old, 6ft 4in, 266lb player set a league-high 18.5 sacks as the San Francisco 49ers set a 13-4 record in winning the NFC West in the 2022 NFL season.

He has just helped them beat Seattle Seahawks in the wild card round and is now gearing up for a showdown with quarterback Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys in the divisional round of the play-offs this coming Sunday.

In an interview with The Yorkshire Post, former 49ers offensive lineman Joe Staley – who represented the 49ers in a Super Bowl with Bosa in his rookie year – gave an insight into what makes the man quarterbacks fear, tick.

“Nick is one of the quieter individuals, he’s pretty much an anomaly, because you think of someone who is so intense, physical, the way he plays the game, he’s the most gregarious personality, someone who has a very outgoing demeanour – he just does not at all,” said Staley.

“He is one of the quieter human beings I’ve been around, not only in the locker room in the NFL, but also as a human being. He’s not going to say two words to you unless you say something to him, and even when he does he mumbles and looks at you with the side-eye.

“I have this story from his rookie year, we were at training camp doing a two-minute drill, one v one at the end of practice, so we’re getting down, moving fast and getting lined up and he’s sitting down in the stands and I hear something from across the line of scrimmage. It’s not coaches screaming, it’s not communication next to you.

“I just hear grunts. I didn’t say anything, but when we’d finished the drill I walked up to him and said ‘dude, what were you saying to yourself over there?’.

"And he just said I was saying my name over and over again: ‘Bosa, Bosa, Bosa’.

“I think that’s the amount of hyping himself up he did - just saying his name. Maybe I should do that!”