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Grading the 49ers' Signing of Tight End Luke Farrell

For a few days, this signing almost made sense.
Grant Cohn|
Nov 3, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Jacksonville Jaguars tight end Luke Farrell (89) against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images
Nov 3, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Jacksonville Jaguars tight end Luke Farrell (89) against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images | Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

For a few days, this signing almost made sense.

The 49ers signed former Jaguars blocking tight end Luke Farrell to a three-year deal worth $20.25 million. That's big money for a player who caught just 12 passes last season and never has scored a touchdown in his career.

It's also a strange signing for the 49ers because they don't use two-tight-end formations often. Last year's No. 2 tight end, Eric Saubert, caught a mere 11 passes and played just 377 snaps. And the 49ers paid him the veteran minimum.

So when the 49ers gave Farrell a three-year deal worth an average of almost $7 million annually, lots of people thought he signaled a philosophical shift in the 49ers offense. They would evolve into a two-tight-end offense and not a two-back offense with a fullback on the field 50 percent of the time.

This theory made sense when the 49ers released Kyle Juszczyk, but this morning they re-signed him. Which means Farrell is just an expensive replacement for Saubert and probably will have a similar impact.

Instead of spending so much money on a blocking tight end who will catch 10 to 15 passes this season, why not just use a sixth offensive lineman in the role? Someone who's already on the team. He might not be much of a receiver, but neither is Farrell. And the lineman would be the superior blocker.

What a waste of money.

GRADE: F

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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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