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49ers LB Fred Warner is 3rd-Best Linebacker Draft Value of Millenium

Fred Warner isn't necessarily the best linebacker in 49ers franchise history. But he is one of their best draft picks ever.
Grant Cohn|
Jun 11, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner (54) watches his teammates workout during a team OTA at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
Jun 11, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner (54) watches his teammates workout during a team OTA at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

Fred Warner isn't necessarily the best linebacker in 49ers franchise history. But he is one of their best draft picks ever.

Patrick Willis is a Hall of Famer, but he was the 11th pick in the 2007 NFL Draft. Fred Warner seems to be a future Hall of Famer, and the 49ers drafted him in Round 3 of the 2018 NFL Draft.

That's why NFL.com says Warner is the third-best draft value at linebacker of the past quarter century after Bobby Wagner and Lavonte David.

"Warner is still much earlier in his career than our first two entries, but he appears to be on the same Hall of Fame-caliber track as Wagner and David," writes NFL.com's Eric Edholm. "Through seven seasons, Warner has established himself as one of the great three-down linebackers, rarely leaving the field and able to impact games in myriad ways.

"Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson are the two headliners from the 2018 draft class, and deservedly so, but Warner might be that crop's best defender, along with Roquan Smith, the No. 8 overall player drafted that year.

"Warner's coverage ability might be his elite trait; he's intercepted 10 passes (two returned for TDs) and defended 53 in total. But his all-around game is also excellent (he rates as a strong run defender and blitzer), and he's missed only one career regular-season game. There's a reason he wears the green dot for the 49ers' defense: Warner is as dependable and impactful a player as you'll find at linebacker these days."

Warner is the perfect modern linebacker, because he's at his best when he's backing up and playing coverage. And yet, he's extremely well-rounded and durable and he's the ultimate leader. The 49ers are lucky to have him.

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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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