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49ers Pick Michigan Defensive Tackle Mason Graham in New Mock Draft

The 49ers need to overhaul their defensive line.

Grant Cohn

Blue Team defensive lineman Mason Graham (55) walks up the tunnel for halftime during the spring game at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on Saturday, April 20, 2024.
Blue Team defensive lineman Mason Graham (55) walks up the tunnel for halftime during the spring game at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on Saturday, April 20, 2024. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK
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The 49ers need to overhaul their defensive line.

It used to be the strength of their team when they had DeForest Buckner, Arik Armstead, Dee Ford and Nick Bosa. Now, they have Bosa and a bunch of guys who are replaceable.

Expect the 49ers to release veteran defensive tackle Javon Hargrave this offseason to clear cap space. Which means defensive tackle could be the 49ers' biggest need. And in Round 1, USA Today's Christian D'Andrea projects the 49ers to pick Michigan defensive tackle Mason Graham.

"One of the tenets of Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers teams is a commitment to a deep and athletic defensive line," writes D'Andrea. "Graham isn’t a perfect fit moving from Michigan’s 3-4 to San Francisco’s 4-3, but he’s talented enough to make this a moot point. The Wolverines star would get to thrive next to a healthy Javon Hargrave to give the Niners a pair of inside-out gap-shooters who can flush quarterbacks out to Nick Bosa and Leonard Floyd’s orbits. At 320 pounds, he’s big enough to be immobile against the run. He’s also quick and explosive enough to blast through gaps as a 3-technique lineman between the guard and tackle."

Graham would be an outstanding pick for the 49ers. And he wouldn't play next to Hargrave, Graham would replace him. If he's available, I expect the 49ers will take him. But I'm not sure he'll be on the board when the 49ers pick -- they currently own the 11th pick. Most mock drafts have him going in the top 10.

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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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