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NFL Mock Draft: 49ers Take Offensive Tackle with Short Arms

This is a perfectly reasonable pick.
Grant Cohn|
Mar 2, 2025; Indianapolis, IN, USA; LSU offensive lineman Will Campbell (OL05) during the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Mar 2, 2025; Indianapolis, IN, USA; LSU offensive lineman Will Campbell (OL05) during the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The NFL Draft is a week away and the 49ers currently own the 11th pick. Who will they take?

For most of the offseason, the experts primarily expected the 49ers to take a defensive lineman with their first pick. But this year's draft is incredibly deep on the defensive line and the 49ers need an offensive tackle, too. And those are hard to find. Almost as hard to find as quarterbacks.

That's why USA Today's Jack McKessy projects the 49ers to take LSU's Will Campbell with the 11th pick.

"Trent Williams will be 37 in July, and Colton McKivitz will hit free agency next year," writes McKessy. "And even though San Francisco lost several of its starters on the defensive line, this simulation saw a good opportunity to fill another roster need with great value after Campbell slid out of the top 10. The LSU product could help improve a 49ers offensive line that ranked 14th in the NFL in pass-block win rate but 24th in run-block win rate in 2024."

This is a perfectly reasonable pick. Last year, the 49ers were expected to draft an offensive tackle but didn't. After Round 3, John Lynch explained why: "We looked at numerous guys throughout the process. I think when you’re drafting 31st, it’s oftentimes hard to find a tackle that you really love. And we like our tackles as they stand right now. We like our depth with Jaylon Moore being a really talented guy who can play the swing role."

Now, Moore is on the Chiefs, Williams is a year older, McKivitz is a year away from free agency and the 49ers have the 11th pick, meaning they're in position to take an offensive tackle they love.

And in this scenario, I think they'd love Kelvin Banks Jr., not Campbell. Because Campbell's are so short, he might have to move to guard or even center.

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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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