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Will 49ers Draft Cornerback in Round 1 for 1st Time Since 2002?

Remember Mike Rumph?
Grant Cohn|
Michigan defensive back Will Johnson (2) celebrates after returning an interception for a touchdown against Fresno State during the second half at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024.
Michigan defensive back Will Johnson (2) celebrates after returning an interception for a touchdown against Fresno State during the second half at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024. | Kimberly P. Mitchell/Detroit Free Press / USA TODAY NETWORK

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San Francisco 49ers

Most mock drafts project the 49ers to take a cornerback with the 11th pick this year.

The logic is sound. The 49ers lost Charvarius Ward and Isaac Yiadom this offseason. They still have Deommodore Lenoir, who's excellent, but the No. 2 cornerback is Renardo Green, who's talented yet unproven. He started just 7 games as a rookie last season. And the 49ers don't really have a No. 3 cornerback right now.

So if Michigan's Will Johnson or Texas' Jahdae Barron drop to the 49ers in Round 1, lots of experts expect the 49ers to pick one of those two players.

Here's the thing, though. The 49ers almost never spend high draft picks on cornerbacks. Last year when they drafted Green, he was the first cornerback they drafted in Round 2 since Shawntae Spencer in 2004.

In addition, the last cornerback the 49ers drafted in Round 1 was Mike Rumph in 2002. Finally, the last cornerback the 49ers drafted with a top-11 pick was Ronnie Lott who was the eighth pick in 1981.

For some odd reason, the 49ers made an organizational decision roughly 20 years ago to stop drafting cornerbacks in the top 60. Even Green wasn't a top-60 pick.

So maybe the 49ers will completely abandon their draft philosophy this year. I just find that highly unlikely. They currently have just one starting-caliber defensive lineman on their roster and they've drafted D-linemen in Round 1 plenty of times throughout the years.

I'd be shocked if they didn't take another one this year.

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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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