Nostalgia’s the preferred narcotic of desperate NFL front offices, but sometimes bringing back an old flame’s just smart business.

It was on Tuesday, when the San Francisco 49ers jettisoned a 2027 fourth-round pick to rescue DeForest Buckner from Indianapolis Colts purgatory.

Six-plus years ago, John Lynch shipped Buckner out of town because the salary cap’s a cruel, unforgiving taskmaster and Lynch made the wrong call about who should be sacrificed to it.

But now he’s back, not as a franchise savior or an untouchable god of the trenches, but as something far more dangerous to the rest of the league: a luxury piece.

Make no mistake, the 49ers didn’t trade for the 2019 or 2020 All-Pro version of Buckner.

Father Time and a litany of injuries made sure of that.

But if you think Buckner’s washed, put down the box score and watch the tape. Over the past three seasons, only three interior defensive linemen in the entire NFL saw more double teams than Buckner: Chris Jones, Jeffery Simmons and Dexter Lawrence.

That’s a pretty impressive list.

You think other teams are doing that because they’re bored? No. They’re still scared of what Buckner can do, and they’re right to be afraid.

So many other stats can tell a misleading story about Buckner’s recent time in Indianapolis. They actually speak to the Colts’ linebackers playing like they were wearing concrete cleats and their defensive ends who had no idea how to set an edge.

That, of course, won’t be a problem in San Francisco.

But perhaps more importantly, Buckner won’t be asked to play 65 snaps a game and carry a franchise on his broad shoulders. He’s no longer the head of the spear.

But Buckner can be an anvil.

Drop Buckner into an interior rotation alongside Osa Odighizuwa, Keion White, Gracen Halten, Mykel Williams, Romello Height, and, oh yeah, Nick Bosa, and suddenly Raheem Morris and Kris Kocurek’s defensive line looks mighty formidable.

Offenses used to slide protection straight toward Bosa and pray the interior couldn’t win a one-on-one matchup. Good luck doing that now.

You can’t double-team Buckner and Bosa simultaneously unless you plan on playing eight linemen and completely forfeiting the concept of a forward pass.

Buckner also augments Morris’ beloved stunt packages. Goodness, is he good at stunts.

It won’t hurt having him or his long arms, either, when sharp teams run duo at the Niners again and again.

Is he a 1-technique? Not exactly, but he can manage, to be sure. But you can play him at techniques 0-5 without much consternation, with 3 or 4 being his best spots. But that’s part of the charm. The Niners were big on five-man fronts before landing Buckner; now they’re likely to be near-exclusive.

Paying a future fourth-rounder — even in a great draft, and even if he doesn’t re-sign — for that kind of winning piece isn’t just reasonable. It’s a no-brainer.

Buckner’s a proven menace who knows the facility, knows the culture, and knows how to win, even if the Colts couldn’t help him do that as of late. There’s a reason he was passive-aggressively begging out in the media two weeks ago. (He was so classy about it, though.)

Do the Niners need to add more before the trade deadline? I say yes. A third tight end is a near necessity. The Niners should look to improve in the secondary, too, if the price is right. Another receiver wouldn’t hurt, and while I doubt there’s a left guard they trust to come in and start (if there was, they’d go for, say, a third and a fifth-round pick), but that’s an area of concern as well.

Will those deals happen? Probably not. (Really consider that tight end angle, John.)

But this will surely be the Niners’ big splash. And it’s a pretty big one.

Reunions in pro sports usually end in tears, awkward press conferences, and bitter buyouts. Teams convince themselves that an aging star can turn back the clock just because the uniform fits the same.

This isn’t that. None of the Niners’ reunions this year have been that.

Because, like with Deebo Samuel and Dre Greenlaw, the 49ers don’t need Buckner to be Superman anymore. They just need him to be a bad, bad man for 30-something snaps a Sunday.

And contrary to popular belief, he’s still more than capable of doing just that.

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