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49ers LBs Dee Winters and Tatum Bethune Stand Out Against the Titans

Winters and Bethune look like they both could become starters for the 49ers in the future.

Grant Cohn

August 19, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dee Winters (53) after the game against the Denver Broncos at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
August 19, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dee Winters (53) after the game against the Denver Broncos at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports / Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
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Of all the positions on the 49ers defense, linebacker definitely is the thinnest.

Dre Greenlaw is recovering from a torn Achilles and most likely will begin the season on the Physically Unable to Perform List, which means he would have to miss at least the first four games. In addition, Fred Warner has a foot injury which has caused him to miss the past week. The 49ers call it irritation and say it's not serious, but it's something to monitor if it lingers or gets reaggravated later in the season.

Behind those two, the 49ers have De'Vondre Campbell, who's 31 and missed five games with the Packers last season. And they have Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles, who's currently injured. So the 49ers really need a young linebacker to step up. And two did this past Saturday -- Dee Winters and Tatum Bethune.

Winters was a sixth-round pick last year. He played in the first half in the preseason game against the Titans and recorded five tackles including one for a six-yard loss. He showed his 4.49 speed repeatedly as he made splashy plays. But he also overran certain plays and seemed lost in coverage at times.

Bethune was a seventh-round pick this year, and he ran a 4.77 -- he's not nearly as fast as Winters. And yet, Bethune recorded a whopping eight tackles while playing just 34 defensive snaps. While he was on the field in the second half against third-stringers, he showed he could shed blocks and stop the run between the tackles. And when he hit someone, he knocked that player backward.

Winters and Bethune look like they both could become starters for the 49ers in the future.

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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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