Leonard Hankerson Explains Why the 49ers Drafted Jacob Cowing

"We can throw it to him down the field or we can throw it to him underneath and he can do whatever, any different aspect to catching the ball, handing it to him, screens."

Grant Cohn | May 23, 2024

May 10, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers rookie wide receiver Jacob Cowing (83) runs drills during the 49ers rookie minicamp at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA. Mandatory Credit: Robert Kupbens-USA TODAY Sports / Robert Kupbens-USA TODAY Sports

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San Francisco 49ers

SANTA CLARA -- The 49ers position coaches double as college scouts during the run-up to the NFL Draft.

That means wide receiver coach Leonard Hankerson graded Jacob Cowing's tape and is a big reason the 49ers took him in Round 4 this year. Here's what Hankerson likes about him.

HANKERSON: "He's a heck of a player. What stood out on him is his toughness, his speed, his mentality to run after the catch. He's going to be a change-of-pace guy for us as well. We can throw it to him down the field or we can throw it to him underneath and he can do whatever, any different aspect to catching the ball, handing it to him, screens -- he's just a good tool for us to have."

Q: Do you see how he can bring how he can bring a different dimension to the offense?

HANKERSON: "Of course. You've got Brandon Aiyuk who's about 5'11". Deebo Samuel is about 5'11". Jauan Jennings is 6'2". Ricky Pearsall is 6'1" and then you have Cowing right around 5'8". Just being a smaller, quick-twitch fast guy who ran a 4.3 -- when need that guy with speed over the top who still is able to run a route. That's exactly what he brings to the table. Everything we do in this offense as far as motioning to catch screens, putting guys in the backfield to run jet sweeps, he does it all."

ME: When you're watching college tape before the draft, how rare is it to find a player who runs the full route tree?

HANKERSON: "It's very rare because in college ball, they don't do as much as we do. So it's tough on me when I'm grading wide receivers because I have to see the skill set that they do have rather than knock them for the route tree. Now, if you get a certain guy who hasn't done it and he's like a running back and you're trying to predict that he can be a receiver, I don't know if he can do it. But when you see the movement skills, you see he can use his feet and his hands, then it's easy to project because now it's all about getting him coached up with the right techniques,

Published May 23, 2024

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.