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49ers Pick Explosive Edge Rusher in New Mock Draft

The 49ers have been searching for a speed rusher to complement Nick Bosa since they traded for Dee Ford five years ago.
Grant Cohn|
Tennessee defensive lineman James Pearce Jr. (27) yells out in celebration after sacking Kentucky quarterback Brock Vandagriff (12) during an NCAA college football game between Tennessee and Kentucky on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, in Knoxville, Tenn.
Tennessee defensive lineman James Pearce Jr. (27) yells out in celebration after sacking Kentucky quarterback Brock Vandagriff (12) during an NCAA college football game between Tennessee and Kentucky on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, in Knoxville, Tenn. | Angelina Alcantar/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers have been searching for a speed rusher to complement Nick Bosa since they traded for Dee Ford five years ago.

Ford never panned out for the 49ers, so they signed Samson Ebukam, whom they replaced with Drake Jackson, whom they replaced with Chase Young, whom they replaced with Leonard Floyd.

Now Robert Saleh is back in his second stint as the 49ers defensive coordinator, and I anticipate he will attempt to fill the speed rusher role once and for all. That's why I project the 49ers to pick Tennessee defensive end James Pearce with the 11th pick in the latest mock draft for On SI.

"The 49ers could take an offensive tackle, but they generally prefer to make big investments into their defensive line, which needs help, too," I wrote. "Pearce Jr. is arguably the most explosive edge rusher in the draft—he had 17.5 sacks the past two seasons compared to Abdul Carter’s 16.5."

The main knock on Pearce Jr. is that he's light for an edge rusher -- just 243 pounds. But Saleh might not care. Two years ago when he was the Jets head coach, he spent the 15th pick in the NFL draft on defensive end Will McDonald IV who's 239 pounds.

In the Wide 9 defense that Saleh uses, the defensive end lines up outside the tight end, which means he doesn't have to worry much about double teams and combination blocks, so he can be smaller. Saleh wants that player to burst into the backfield and blow up plays.

Pearce Jr. can do that.

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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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