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The Player whose Departure Will Impact 49ers Most in 2025

The 49ers let nine starting players leave this offseason. Whose departure will impact them the most?
Grant Cohn|
Nov 12, 2023; Jacksonville, Florida, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dee Greenlaw (57) and safety Talanoa Hufanga (29) before the game against the Jacksonville Jaguars at EverBank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Morgan Tencza-Imagn Images
Nov 12, 2023; Jacksonville, Florida, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dee Greenlaw (57) and safety Talanoa Hufanga (29) before the game against the Jacksonville Jaguars at EverBank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Morgan Tencza-Imagn Images | Morgan Tencza-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers let nine starting players leave this offseason. Whose departure will impact them the most?

Deebo Samuel's departure actually should help the team. Forcing him the ball in the Super Bowl and this past season made the 49ers offense worse. Redistributing his carries and targets to George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey, Jauan Jennings and Ricky Pearsall will be a good thing.

The departures of Leonard Floyd, Maliek Collins and Javon Hargrave shouldn't hurt the 49ers too much considering none of them ever made a meaningful impact.

The losses of Aaron Banks and Jaylon Moore won't help the 49ers' offensive line, but they aren't impact players. They're solid starters at best.

Charvarius Ward's absence should hurt the defense considering he was one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL two seasons ago. But he's on the downside of his career at this point.

So is linebacker Dre Greenlaw. He used to be a great player, but his body might not be able to hold up for a full season anymore.

That's why Talanoa Hufanga's absence could hurt the 49ers the most. His replacement, Malik Mustapha, tore his ACL for the second time in Week 18 and probably will miss at least the first few games of next season.

Meanwhile, Hufanga will be two years removed from his torn ACL, which means he'll be fully healthy for the first time in a while. And he's a serious playmaker when he's healthy. And he's still just 25 years old.

This offseason, the Broncos signed Hufanga to a three-year, $39 million deal. The 49ers easily could have matched or beaten it. I have a feeling they'll wish they did.

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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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