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Sports Illustrated Gives the 49ers a "D" Grade for their Draft

This seems a bit harsh.
Grant Cohn|
Mykel Williams, DE, Georgia was selected 11th overall by the San Francisco 49ers during the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft at Lambeau Field on April 24, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Mykel Williams, DE, Georgia was selected 11th overall by the San Francisco 49ers during the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft at Lambeau Field on April 24, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. | Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

This seems a bit harsh.

Sports Illustrated's Gilberto Manzano has given the 49ers a "D" grade for their draft this year. Here's what Manzano wrote about the 49ers' draft:

"To no surprise, the 49ers went heavy on defense with their draft class. They lost several starters in free agency, but the team might not have drafted the right players to immediately fill those voids. Mykel Williams surprisingly went ahead of Jalon Walker, and perhaps he doesn’t have the same upside as James Pearce Jr., Shemar Stewart and Mike Green. Then again, the 49ers might have seen something in Williams that wasn’t easy to spot after Williams played through an ankle injury last season. But this was a deep class for edge rushers. San Francisco also missed an opportunity to add an offensive lineman in the first round after losing Aaron Banks in free agency."

The 49ers could have drafted Alabama guard Tyler Booker with the 11th pick to replace Banks -- the Cowboys took him one pick later. But I think Willams is a better pick than Booker and a better fit in the 49ers' defense than the other edge rushers Manzano named. Those guys are one-trick ponies who do not set firm edges in the run game.

Williams is a true three-down defensive end who will be elite against the run from Day 1. I think he was their best draft pick by far.

The worst thing the 49ers did was not address the offensive line until pick No. 249. But that doesn't make this draft a "D" in my humble opinion.

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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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