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The Pros and Cons of the 49ers Potentially Signing Dez Bryant

What do you think the 49ers should do?
Grant Cohn|
The Pros and Cons of the 49ers Potentially Signing Dez Bryant
The Pros and Cons of the 49ers Potentially Signing Dez Bryant

Deebo Samuel is out three to four months with a broken foot, Dez Bryant is a free agent and Kendrick Bourne says the 49ers should sign him.

Should the 49ers take Bourne’s advice?

Here is Bourne’s official pitch to the 49ers:

And here is Bryant’s official response:

Clearly, Bryant would love to play for the 49ers. They’re Super Bowl contenders. I’m sure he’d love to play in big, nationally-televised games -- he played in lots of them when he was a wide receiver for the Cowboys. Plus, he’s 31 and hasn’t played in the NFL since 2017. He probably would suit up for any team that wants him. He’s desperate.

Bryant used to be fantastic -- he’s a three-time Pro Bowler. Maybe he still is better than the 49ers’ young receivers.

Nick Cothrel of Sports Illustrated’s All49ers recently wrote that the 49ers should NOT sign Bryant. Cothrel makes fantastic points, and I urge you to read his article.

This article is different. Unlike Cothrel, I take the balanced approach. I weigh the pros and cons.

Here are all the positives and negatives of the 49ers potentially signing Bryant.

POSITIVES:

NEGATIVES:

1. Bryant is old.

2. Bryant can’t get open anymore.

3. Bryant hasn’t played since 2017.

4. Bryant wasn’t even good during his final season.

5. Bryant tore his Achilles in 2018 just after signing a contract with the Saints.

6. Bryant probably is in worse physical shape now than before he tore his Achilles.

7. Bryant is older and more expensive and worse than probably a dozen wide receivers who will get cut and become free agents before Week 1.

8. Bryant is a diva and not a team-first guy. Diva wide receivers typically don’t fit on run-first offenses, because they don’t catch enough passes to be happy.

9. Bryant wouldn’t have a role in the offense after September, because Samuel will miss only a few games.

10. Bryant would take playing time away from young, talented wide receivers who need opportunities to learn and prove themselves. I’m talking Jalen Hurd, Brandon Aiyuk, Trent Taylor and Jauan Jennings.

11. Bryant would be a terrible veteran mentor for the 49ers’ young receivers and reinforce all the wrong values.

Now that we’ve weighed the pros and cons, what do you think the 49ers should do?

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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.

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