Kyle Shanahan Hints at Competition for Starting Spot on 49ers Defense

This competition is wide open.

Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

The San Francisco 49ers are going to have an open competition at linebacker. While the starting middle linebacker and weakside linebacker have been spoken for, head coach Kyle Shanahan said that he expects there to be competition at strong side linebacker, although Luke Gifford might currently have the lead based on his play from last season. 

Luke Gifford could start for the San Francisco 49ers

The strong side linebacker does not play much, as the 49ers run nickel and play a slot cornerback over a third linebacker on most downs. However, Gifford did play 172 snaps last season. Beyond that, Raheem Morris is expected to be more versatile with his linebacker usage than Robert Saleh. So there is a chance that the strong side linebacker could play 200 snaps or more this year. Right now, Shanahan likes Gifford's chances, but there are others who can compete to win the starting spot.

Last year, Tatum Bethune ran behind Fred Warner as the backup middle linebacker. This allowed to work on play calling with the green dot. So, you would assume that Bethune stays in that role. Last year, Garrett Wallow started at the weakside spot when Dee Winters went down. He was only signed because Nick Martin got banged up when the chance to step into the weakside role presented itself. 

Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

The thought would be that they would slide back into that role this year, and they can compete to back up Dre Greenlaw. So, it mostly leaves Jaden Dugger as the likely competition for Gifford. This makes a lot of sense when looking at the profile of Dugger.

He is big, strong, and athletic, but he is raw as a linebacker. The strong side linebacker would be asked to play near the line of scrimmage more often and blitz. He would be leaning on his size more to defend against the run. For example, Gifford played 120 run snaps to 52 pass downs. All of this matches the skill set of Dugger. 

The good news is that Dugger just has to beat out Luke Gifford to get on the field as a rookie. The bad news is that the role is not major, and if he does not beat out Gifford, there is a chance that the 49ers try to sneak him onto the practice squad. As it stands, Jalen Graham is likely the third option at the strong side position.