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Why the 49ers Might Draft an Oregon Duck in Round 1 this Year

Sometimes, you need to go back to what works.

Grant Cohn

Sep 28, 2024; Pasadena, California, USA; Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning talks to Oregon Ducks defensive lineman Derrick Harmon (55) during the fourth quarter at Rose Bowl. Mandatory Credit: Robert Hanashiro-Imagn Images
Sep 28, 2024; Pasadena, California, USA; Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning talks to Oregon Ducks defensive lineman Derrick Harmon (55) during the fourth quarter at Rose Bowl. Mandatory Credit: Robert Hanashiro-Imagn Images / Robert Hanashiro-Imagn Images
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Sometimes, you need to go back to what works.

For the Eagles, that means drafting players from the University of Georgia. They've taken five in the first four rounds the past three years and probably will pick another one this year.

Meanwhile, the 49ers have had success drafting players from Oregon. We're talking Arik Armstead, DeForest Buckner and Deommodore Lenoir most recently. In fact, the only excellent defensive tackles the 49ers have drafted in the past 30 years have been Buckner and Armstead.

Which brings us to this year's draft. The 49ers desperately need to take a defensive tackle and an offensive tackle, and Oregon happens to provide a first-round prospect at each position: defensive tackle Derrick Harmon and offensive tackle Josh Conerly Jr.

Harmon is similar to Armstead when Armstead was young. Both are tall players with long arms who are excellent against the run and fit the 49ers' Wide 9 defensive front. In addition, both push the pocket and generate lots of pressure on the quarterback.

Conerly Jr. played left tackle the past two seasons for Oregon -- he is similar to 49ers left tackle Trent Williams.

Assuming Williams doesn't retire this offseason, the 49ers might be inclined to draft Harmon over Conerly with the 11th pick. Harmon would be a plug-and-play Day 1 starter who would greatly improve the 49ers defensive immediately.

But if Williams decides to retire, the 49ers could decide to draft Conerly with the 11th pick. Because of all the offensive tackle prospects in this year's draft, Conerly might be the only true left tackle prospect.

Either way, the 49ers can't go wrong drafting a Duck in Round 1.

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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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