Defensive end Bryce Huff spent most of the offseason waiting to be traded by the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Eagles signed Huff to a three-year, $51.1 million contract as an NFL free agent last offseason after he recorded 10 sacks, 21 quarterback hits and 33 pressures for the New York Jets during the 2023 season. But the former Mobile prep star didn’t duplicate that production with Philadelphia, and the Eagles traded him to the San Francisco 49ers on June 3 for a fifth-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.

“I learned a lot about myself throughout that experience,” Huff said. “But, I mean, I don’t know. It just didn’t work out at the end of the day. So, I mean, you live and you learn. And all I focus on is what I’m doing right now, and that’s being a 49er and doing everything I can to help this team win.”

As a starter in the first three games of the 2024 season, Huff had one tackle and no sacks for the Eagles. He started three more games in the remainder of the season, missed a five-game block from Weeks 12 through 16 because of a wrist injury and did not play in Philadelphia’s 40-22 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX. Huff finished the season with 2.5 sacks and 13 tackles in 12 games.

San Francisco defensive-line coach Kris Kocurek said the 49ers plan to get Huff back in his comfort zone.

“I still saw a good player on tape,” Kocurek said of Huff’s 2023 performance. “He had a wrist injury about kind of midseason that kind of derailed his progression within being a standup player, but I thought he was really coming along. He was getting better within his role of being more of a standup outside linebacker. …

“It’s a little bit different than the hand-in-the-ground role that he played with Robert (Saleh) and the Jets. Still a good player, and we’re going to get him back to being a little bit more of what he’s comfortable with – putting his hand in the ground and getting off and getting him out of a two-point stance and back into a three-slash-four-point stance. It’s where he’s excelled at and what he feels the most comfortable with.”

The trade reunited Huff with Saleh, San Francisco’s defensive coordinator. Saleh served as Huff’s head coach with the Jets in 2021, 2022 and 2023 as the defensive end grew into a top situational pass-rusher.

“The main thing I remember is, like, my first season with Coach Saleh and how intense the practices were and just how the entire group was just bought in,” Huff said. “So it was easy for me to just, like, get better because everybody around me was getting better. Just iron-sharpens-iron type of thing, snd I just remember the grind. Like it was a hot summer, hot camp, and it kind of pushed everybody on that D-line to get better and grow as a whole, do I was able to just learn from all the guys I was in that room with and just work hard and be able to put myself in the best position to take advantage of my opportunity.”

Saleh said Huff added “speed off the edge” to the San Franciso defense.

“I think highly of him as a pass-rusher,” Saleh said. “Thought he was very productive, obviously, with the Jets. He wins at such a high rate. A lot of times when we look at pass-rushers, we look at sacks, and sacks are important. They end drives, and it’s ultimately what gets these guys paid. But his disruption rate in getting the quarterback off the spot and the way he can do it now. He is a second-effort pass-rusher, but he wins so quickly so often that coordinators have to account for his presence on the field.”

In 2019, the 49ers traded with the Kansas City Chiefs to obtain defensive end Dee Ford, and the former St. Clair County High School and Auburn standout helped San Francisco reach the Super Bowl that season. Forty-Niners coach Kyle Shanahan said Huff’s speed off the snap reminded him of Ford.

“He’s definitely a guy that I watched a long time,” Huff said of Ford. “… We have the same type of stride, and that’s just something that he showed me so I can work on my timing with some of my moves and stuff like that.”

An All-State defensive lineman for St. Paul’s Episcopal’s AHSAA Class 5A championship team in 2015, Huff entered the NFL from Memphis as an undrafted rookie in 2020.

“Just a self-made man in the NFL,” Kocurek said of Huff. “Anytime an undrafted rookie works and works and grinds his way through and makes the team and then becomes a productive player within a scheme and then becomes a double-digit type sacker in the NFL, you know there’s a lot of hard work behind the scenes that goes into it because undrafted guys are a little bit behind the eight-ball from the start.”

Huff said he’s still carrying the undrafted mentality so that he’s able to move forward from what happened in Philadelphia.

“I always kind of have that on my shoulder just because of how I came into the NFL,” Huff said. “But I don’t know. It’s really more of a feeling of being grateful for having an opportunity to do what I love, and that’s get off the ball and be aggressive and get after the quarterback. And, yeah, that’s all I’m thinking about right now. Like, I can’t wait to get back out there on game days and get off out of my stance, get after the quarterback, stop the run, like, just be violent, so that’s all I’m thinking about, just having fun out there.”

San Francisco has completed its offseason practices. The 49ers rookies report for training camp on July 15, with the veterans coming in on July 22. San Francisco kicks off its three-game preseason schedule on Aug. 9 against the Denver Broncos.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.