Will the 49ers Release RB Elijah Mitchell?

It wasn't long ago that the 49ers liked Mitchell so much that they got rid of Raheem Mostert, who signed with the Dolphins and scored a league-leading 21 touchdowns last season.
Jan 7, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Elijah Mitchell (25)
Jan 7, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Elijah Mitchell (25) / Sergio Estrada-USA TODAY Sports
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Two years ago Elijah Mitchell was the 49ers' starting running back. Now his career is on life support. Will he even make the team?

It wasn't long ago that the 49ers liked Mitchell so much that they got rid of Raheem Mostert, who signed with the Dolphins and scored a league-leading 21 touchdowns last season. Mostert has been able to stay healthy in Miami, something he couldn't do on the 49ers, and Mitchell has been constantly banged up.

That's why the 49ers traded for Christian McCaffrey. They simply couldn't rely on Mitchell anymore, because he misses so many games. And even when he's on the field, he's still not 100 percent healthy.

So the 49ers hope Mitchell could be McCaffrey's backup. But last season, Mitchell averaged just 3.7 yards per carry in the regular season and a mere 2.5 yards per carry in the playoffs. Meanwhile, the 49ers have Jordan Mason who averaged 5.2 yards per carry in the regular season and 6.0 yards per carry in the playoffs.

In addition, the 49ers just traded up in Round 4 to draft running back Isaac Guerendo who runs a 4.33, plus they signed UDFA running back Cody Schrader who was the SEC's leading rusher last season. Which means Mitchell has real competition to make the team this season. If he gets injured and misses most of training camp as he has in the past, he might not make the team.

Mitchell is only 26. It's too bad he wore down so young.


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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.