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49ers DC Nick Sorensen Gives an Honest Assessment of Sam Darnold

What a gentleman.

Grant Cohn

Jul 25, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen answers questions at a press conference following Day 3 of training camp at SAP Performance Facility. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
Jul 25, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen answers questions at a press conference following Day 3 of training camp at SAP Performance Facility. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images / D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
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SANTA CLARA -- San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen is polite but honest.

He won't ever put down an opponent, but he also won't lie to praise them. He'll say the nicest things that he believes to be true and leave the rest unsaid.

This week, he was asked about Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold, who ran the 49ers scout team in practice last year. Sorensen knows him well.

Check out what Sorensen said about Darnold and notice how carefully he chose his words:

“I don't know a ton about the situation, but I do know, which is why he was drafted so high is how much talent he has. He is a really good athlete. If you watch him throw, he can throw. I think there's always a lot of things that go into having success. There's so many guys on the team, it's not ever one person. That's why you need all these different pieces. You need guys that can click. You need guys that work together. He definitely has a talent. He's got the arm strength. He can see things. I think he probably learned a lot too when he came here, as you would in any year, you keep growing. You could see it on the practice field. I was like, ‘man, he can really throw it’ and he would give us good looks in practice and stuff going against him. You could see the talent; you can see how he moves. He's a good athlete as well.”

In summary, Darnold "throws well," is a "good athlete" and "can see things." Those are facts. He definitely has an arm and legs and the power of sight. Unfortunately, when he passes the ball, he often holds onto it too long and then throws it to the other team.

Which means that despite his many extraordinary talents, he simply isn't a good quarterback. And Sorensen said that in the nicest way possible.

What a gentleman.

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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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