All 49ers

The Biggest Takeaway from the 49ers' Draft this Year

Just look at how the Eagles won the Super Bowl last season.
Grant Cohn|
May 9, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive line tryouts Ali Saad (74), C.J. West (50) and DíQuan Douse (90) wait for their turn at a blocking drill during the teamís rookie minicamp. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
May 9, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive line tryouts Ali Saad (74), C.J. West (50) and DíQuan Douse (90) wait for their turn at a blocking drill during the teamís rookie minicamp. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

In this story:

San Francisco 49ers

After finishing just 6-11 last season, the 49ers had too many issues to fix all of them in just one draft.

They wasted three first-round picks and a third-rounder on Trey Lance. The 49ers could have used those picks on cornerstone players. Instead, they got next to nothing.

Rebuilding the 49ers roster will take multiple years. So this year, particularly in the draft, the 49ers decided to focus on one area of their team. Pro Football Focus recently discussed the 49ers' decision.

"The 49ers entered the 2025 draft with a clear mission: fix a run defense that ranked 28th in PFF grade last season," writes PFF's Dalton Wasserman. "And they didn’t just address the issue — they went all in.

"Of the six defensive players San Francisco selected, five earned run-defense grades of at least 80.0 in 2024, signaling a deliberate and aggressive approach to shoring up one of the roster’s biggest weaknesses.

"That group includes defensive linemen Mykel Williams, Alfred Collins, and CJ West, all of whom bring immediate upside as stout, physical run defenders. With their arrival, the 49ers are betting that a tougher, more disciplined front can help restore the defense to its former dominance."

Those three rookies replace Leonard Floyd, Javon Hargrave and Maliek Collins, three veterans who are good pass-rushers but sub-par run defenders. It's obvious that defensive coordinator Robert Saleh believes run defense is becoming increasingly important as NFL offenses evolve.

Just look at how the Eagles won the Super Bowl last season.

Read more

Published
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.

Share on XFollow grantcohn
Home/News