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The Pantheon of 49ers Greats

A Ring of Honor can't come close to representing all the great people who have worked for the 49ers.
Grant Cohn|
The Pantheon of 49ers Greats
The Pantheon of 49ers Greats

Technically, the San Francisco 49ers have a Ring of Honor and a museum to commemorate their best players.

But a Ring of Honor can't come close to representing all the great people who have worked for the 49ers since Bill Walsh became the head coach in 1979. Plus, I didn't decide get to decide which players made the Ring of Honor, so it doesn't count. Sorry.

Here are the greatest 49ers of the modern era, according to me. Here is my Pantheon of 49ers greats in no particular order.

THE PANTHEON

1. Jerry Rice

2. Joe Montana

3. Ronnie Lott

4. Dwight Clark

5. Roger Craig

6. Tom Rathman

7. John Taylor

8. Freddie Solomon

9. Brent Jones

10. Steve Young

11. Bryant Young

12. Justin Smith

13. Patrick Willis

14. NaVorro Bowman

15. Merton Hanks.

16. Eddie DeBartolo Jr.

17. Carmen Policy

18. Bill Walsh

19. George Seifert

20. Mike Holmgren

21. Eric Wright

22. Frank Gore

23. Vernon Davis

24. Joe Staley

25. Fred Dean

26. Harris Barton.

27. Guy McIntyre

28. Keena Turner

29. Randy Cross

30. Jesse Sapolu

31. John McVay

32. Bobb McKittrick

33. Eric Davis

34. Dennis Green

35. Sam Wyche

36. Ira Miller

37. Lowell Cohn

38. Joe Starkey

PEOPLE IN THE WAITING ROOM OF THE PANTHEON

1. George Kittle

2. Fred Warner

PEOPLE WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE PANTHEON BUT GOT TRADED

1. DeForest Buckner

PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT ALLOWED WITHIN 50 FEET OF THE PANTHEON

1. Jed York

2. John York

3. Denise York

Published
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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