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Grading the 49ers' Signing of Fullback Kyle Juszczyk

This is one of the strangest moves the 49ers have ever made.
Grant Cohn|
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk (44) looks on after losing to the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk (44) looks on after losing to the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images | Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

This is one of the strangest moves the 49ers have ever made.

They just re-signed Kyle Juszczyk to a two-year, $8 million deal just a few days after releasing him. How did this happen? Let's start from the beginning.

A couple weeks ago at the NFL Scouting Combine, general manager John Lynch informed reporters that the 49ers would become younger and more cost-efficient this offseason. And so, a few days later he released Juszczyk, one of the oldest, most overpaid players on the team. And they took on a dead cap hit of $3,570,750 to release him just so they could re-sign him to a two-year deal.

Makes no sense.

Juszczyk will turn 34 in April. As a receiver, he scares no one. As a running back, he's a fumbler who can't be trusted even in short yardage. And as a blocker, he has regressed significantly since his 20s. So whenever he's on the field, someone better has to come off of it.

Instead of giving Juszczyk $4 million per season annually, the 49ers could have drafted a fullback or signed one as an undrafted free agent and paid him the league minimum salary and he would have just about the same impact.

Or the 49ers could have joined the modern NFL and gotten rid of the fullback position from their roster. Why not use a second tight end or a third wide receiver instead? You know, a real threat, as opposed to window dressing.

GRADE: F

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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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