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Which Defensive End Will the 49ers Sign in Free Agency?

Here are three defensive ends the 49ers can choose from when free agency starts on Wednesday.

Grant Cohn

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The 49ers desperately need a starting defensive end opposite Nick Bosa.

The only other defensive ends on the roster currently are Drake Jackson and Robert Beal Jr., and neither one is a starter. So the 49ers have to sign at least one. They probably have to draft one, too.

Here are three defensive ends the 49ers can choose from when free agency starts on Wednesday.

1. Danielle Hunter

Hunter is a premier edge rusher in the NFL who is 29-years old, he's excellent against the run and he recorded 16.5 sacks last season. He's the total package. If the 49ers want to make a giant splash and sign the best defensive end currently on the free-agent market, they can sign Hunter to a multi-year deal worth roughly $20 million per season. And he'd be worth every penny. But the 49ers don't have much cap space at the moment, and they'd have to restructure lots of players' contracts to acquire Hunter, and I doubt they'll be that aggressive.

2. Jonathan Greenard

Greenard is a 26-year-old edge rusher who had 12.5 sacks last season playing in the Wide 9 defense for Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans, which means Greenard fits the 49ers scheme. He's probably looking for a five-year deal worth roughly $13 million per season, which might be a bit too rich for the 49ers.

3. Leonard Floyd

Floyd is a 31-year-old edge rusher who signed a one-year, $7 million contract with the Bills last year and then recorded 10.5 sacks for them. So he's still good even though he's on the down side of his career. If the 49ers want him, they probably can sign him to a one- or two-year deal worth roughly $8 million per year. That seems right in their price range.

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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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