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49ers to Sign J.J. Nelson and Tavon Austin

The 49ers seem to have put the finishing touches on their roster before training camp starts on Saturday.
Grant Cohn|
49ers to Sign J.J. Nelson and Tavon Austin
49ers to Sign J.J. Nelson and Tavon Austin

The 49ers seem to have put the finishing touches on their roster before training camp starts on Saturday.

The 49ers intend to sign two wide receivers once they pass physicals -- Tavon Austin and J.J. Nelson -- per ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Austin, 30, was the eighth pick of the 2013 draft after he ran a 4.34 40-yard dash to the NFL Scouting Combine. He has spent his career with the Rams and Cowboys, and has started only nine games at wide receiver since 2016. But he still is an electric athlete who can return punts and kickoffs for touchdowns.

Nelson, 28, was the Arizona Cardinals’ fifth-round pick in 2015 after he ran a 4.29 at the Combine. In five seasons in the NFL, he has started just 16 games and caught only 85 passes, but has scored 12 touchdowns, and he averages a whopping 17.4 yards per catch and 10 yards per carry. He’s a dynamic deep threat receiver who also can be a gadget player. Still, he appeared in just two games last season for the Raiders.

Neither Nelson nor Austin is a coveted player in the league -- that’s why both were free agents in mid August. But both are extremely fast -- much faster than the rest of the wide receivers on the 49ers.

I’m guessing one of Nelson or Austin will make the 49ers final roster, because head coach Kyle Shanahan wants a speed receiver. Plus, the 49ers seem to want a new returner to replace Richie James Jr.

The competition between Austin and Nelson will be fun to watch when camp begins.

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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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