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The 49ers' Biggest Rookie Sleeper of 2025

The 49ers are hoping lots of their rookies can play and possibly start this season.
Grant Cohn|
May 9, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive line tryouts Ali Saad (74), C.J. West (50) and DíQuan Douse (90) wait for their turn at a blocking drill during the teamís rookie minicamp. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
May 9, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive line tryouts Ali Saad (74), C.J. West (50) and DíQuan Douse (90) wait for their turn at a blocking drill during the teamís rookie minicamp. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers are hoping lots of their rookies can play and possibly start this season.

First-round draft pick Mykel Williams obviously will start right away at defensive end opposite Nick Bosa. But other rookies will have opportunities to play as well, even rookies taken on Day 3 of the draft.

In fact, CBS Sports names fourth-round pick defensive tackle C.J. West the 49ers' biggest rookie sleeper this year.

"West was as advanced of a run-stuffer as there was at defensive tackle in the 2025 class," writes CBS Sports' Chris Trapasso. "He's ready to go in that area of the game, and based on the 49ers' other selections, improving the run defense was the club's core philosophy in the 2025 draft. The former Indiana star is an ascending pass-rusher, too, because along with the heavy hands he deploys to toss blockers ahead to halt the run, he has twitch when attacking upfield.

"The 49ers don't have a primary interior rusher who can stay on the field for three downs and routinely win. Well, they didn't. They do now with West, whom they stole in the fourth round."

West certainly seems like a good draft pick with an intriguing future, but Trapasso's analysis seems like hyperbole.

West is a good run defender, but is he truly an ascending pass-rusher? He had 2 sacks last year and has 31 1/2-inch arms, which are extremely short for an NFL defensive lineman. That's why the 49ers drafted defensive tackle Alfred Collins in Round 2 -- he's much bigger and has more length than West. Which means Collins has a better chance to become a three-down player than West.

But this year, I wouldn't expect either player to be on the field for third down. Instead, Mykel Williams and Yetur Gross-Matos most likely will play defensive tackle while Nick Bosa and Bryce Huff play defensive end.

West still has a bright future as a nose tackle, though.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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