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49ers Linebacker Coach Raves about Dee Winters' Development

The 49ers need a replacement for Dre Greenlaw who signed with the Broncos this offseason.
Grant Cohn|
Dec 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dee Winters (53) during the game against the Detroit Lions at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images
Dec 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dee Winters (53) during the game against the Detroit Lions at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images | Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers need a replacement for Dre Greenlaw who signed with the Broncos this offseason.

Most assume his replacement will be rookie linebacker Nick Martin because the 49ers drafted him in Round 3. Martin certainly will have an opportunity to win the job in training camp, but he'll have to beat out third-year linebacker Dee Winters.

Winters was a sixth-round pick in 2023. He played only 60 defensive snaps as a rookie, but in 2024 he played 398 defensive snaps and started 10 games while splitting time with veteran De'Vondre Campbell who eventually quit the team mid-game against the Rams in Week 15.

Winters is not a quitter. In fact, he's becoming a leader on the defense according to linebackers coach Johnny Holland.

"Dee Winters improved so much from his first year to his second year," said Holland. "Unfortunately, last year he split reps and he was nicked up, but Dee Winters probably has been our most improved linebacker from Year 2 to this year. I see it now, his leadership ability. Dee Winters always had athletic ability. He can run and hit and be explosive. But he has a good positive energy, he communicates well and he just needs to continue to get better with reps. I think he and Nick Martin and Fred Warner are three really good linebackers for us."

I'm guessing Winters will begin the season as the Greenlaw replacement, meaning he will be the weak-side linebacker next to Warner and the two of them will play next to each other in the nickel defense. Meanwhile, Martin will be the strong-side linebacker in the base defense and he won't play in the nickel defense. At least not initially.

If Winters struggles or gets injured, then Martin will get his chance to fill the Greenlaw role, but not until then. It's Winters' job to lose.

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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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