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PFF Ranks 49ers LB Fred Warner the NFL's 57th Best Player of 2024

Fred Warner probably will be a Hall of Famer one day.
Grant Cohn|
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner (54) looks on after losing to the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner (54) looks on after losing to the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images | Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

Fred Warner probably will be a Hall of Famer one day.

He's 28 and already a four-time first-team All Pro. Patrick Willis was a five-time first-team All Pro who retired at 29 and he's in the Hall of Fame. Which means Warner's resume could exceed Willis' one day.

This past season, Warner played all but the first few games with a fractured ankle and he still was an All Pro. That's how good he is. And that's why Pro Football Focus ranks him the NFL's 57th-best player of 2024.

"For the fifth straight season, Warner finds himself on the PFF 101," writes PFF. "At a position where it’s hard for players to be consistently elite, he has been just that. The 28-year-old has been one of the four highest-graded linebackers in football in each of the last five seasons and has now placed second three years in a row, this time earning an 89.2 PFF grade. While he’s the third-ranked linebacker on this list, it’s hard not to view Warner as the gold standard for the position."

As great as Warner is, the 49ers defense ranked just 29th out of 32 teams in terms of points allowed and struggled big time against the run in particular because they missed Dre Greenlaw. He played just 34 snaps last season. He's one of the most underrated players in the NFL and he will be a free agent next month. If the 49ers don't re-sign, they better find someone just as good.

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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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