Kevin Givens Charged with Second Degree Assault

Givens could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Grant Cohn | Mar 26, 2021

This is sad if it's true.

49ers defensive tackle Kevin Givens allegedly assaulted a man named Hayden Bosley in Baltimore, Maryland on Feb. 21, according to TMZ sports. Givens has been charged with misdemeanor second-degree assault and could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Givens allegedly attacked Bosley in a hotel hallway, wrestled him to the ground and dislocated his shoulder before Bosley escaped and ran away.

The 49ers have not yet commented on Givens' assault charge.

But they may have seen this news coming. Three days ago, on March 23, the 49ers signed veteran backup nose tackle Zach Kerr, a move which seemed strange at the time, because Givens is the 49ers backup nose tackle, and a good one. He showed promise last season, and he just turned 24 a few weeks ago. His future seemed bright.

Until this.

Now the 49ers have another backup nose tackle just in case Givens is found guilty and the NFL suspends him. And who knows? Depending on the evidence, the 49ers might even release him.

What a shame that would be.

Givens was an undrafted free agent in 2019 who played his college football at Penn State. He spent most of his rookie season on the 49ers practice squad, but made the team in 2020 after a terrific training camp during which he outshined former first-round pick Solomon Thomas every day. Givens seemed like the player the 49ers hoped Thomas would become -- an undersized interior pass rusher who wins with quickness and strength.

And while Thomas was a disappointment, Givens was an inspiration. Someone who made an NFL career for himself when it wasn't handed to him.

Hopefully, he didn't just throw it away.

Published Mar 26, 2021

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.