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NFL Mock Draft: 49ers Take Defensive Player from Georgia in Round 1

The NFL Draft is almost a week away and we still have no clue which player the 49ers will take with the 11th pick.

Grant Cohn

Jan 2, 2025; New Orleans, LA, USA; Georgia Bulldogs linebacker Jalon Walker (11) celebrates with Bulldogs defensive lineman Mykel Williams (13) after making a defensive stop against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish during the first quarter at Caesars Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
Jan 2, 2025; New Orleans, LA, USA; Georgia Bulldogs linebacker Jalon Walker (11) celebrates with Bulldogs defensive lineman Mykel Williams (13) after making a defensive stop against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish during the first quarter at Caesars Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images / Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
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The NFL Draft is almost a week away and we still have no clue which player the 49ers will take with the 11th pick.

They could take a linebacker to replace Dre Greenlaw. They could take an offensive tackle to eventually replace Trent Williams. Or, they could take a defensive lineman to help out Nick Bosa.

NFL.com Next Gen Stats analyst Mike Band expects the 49ers to go with the third option. That's why he projects them to take Georgia defensive end Mykel Williams with the 11th pick.

"In his first four drafts as GM (2017-2020), John Lynch used three first-round picks on defensive linemen, establishing that front as a foundational pillar of the 49ers’ team-building philosophy," writes Band.

"Early-round investments on the unit slowed thereafter -- but now, with aging depth and uncertainty opposite Nick Bosa, that trend could swing back to prominence. Williams fits the prototype San Francisco typically covets: long, explosive and scheme-versatile, while possessing untapped upside."

Williams also is quite similar to 49ers defensive end Yetur Gross-Matos, who has the sixth-highest cap hit on the team this year. I'm skeptical that the 49ers will spend the 11th pick on a better version of a player they're already paying relatively big money when they have so many other needs to address.

In addition, defensive end and defensive tackle are two of the deepest positions in the upcoming draft. So in Round 1, the 49ers might prefer to take a position that lacks depth and then wait until Rounds 2 and 3 to address their D-line.

We'll find out soon enough.

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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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