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Atlanta Hawks Hire Former 49ers Trainer Ben Peterson

Instead of promoting someone from a team that historically has suffered lots of injuries every year, hire someone from a team that generally doesn't have a ton of injuries.

Grant Cohn

Jul 27, 2023; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers offensive line coach and run game coordinator Chris Foerster talks to a group of offensive lineman during training camp at the SAP Performance Facility. Mandatory Credit: Robert Edwards-USA TODAY Sports
Jul 27, 2023; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers offensive line coach and run game coordinator Chris Foerster talks to a group of offensive lineman during training camp at the SAP Performance Facility. Mandatory Credit: Robert Edwards-USA TODAY Sports / Robert Edwards-USA TODAY Sports
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The 49ers suddenly have a major opening in their training staff.

Former 49ers head of player health and performance Ben Peterson has been hired by the Atlanta Hawks as their vice president of player health and performance according to The NFL Network's Tom Pelissero.

Before working with the 49ers, Peterson was the head of sports science for the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers for two seasons. Then in 2019, the 49ers fired strength and conditioning coach Ray Wright and head trainer Jeff Ferguson and hired Peterson to replace both of them. And Peterson had mixed results.

Until last season, Peterson's tenure was marked by a pattern of persistent injuries that preceded him. He didn't seem to have the answer for the reason the 49ers ranked among the NFL's most injured teams year after year for a decade until 2023 when the 49ers finally were relatively healthy. Maybe Peterson figured out the underlying issue. Or maybe the 49ers got lucky, Either way, he left while his stock was up.

Now the 49ers have to find a replacement. They could promote assistant of player health and performance Cameron Bustos, or head athletic trainer Dustin Little, or assistant head athletic trainer Manny Rivera, or director of functional performance Elliott Williams. Or the 49ers could hire someone from outside the organization. Maybe that would be the smart move.

Instead of promoting someone from a team that historically has suffered lots of injuries every year, hire someone from a team that generally doesn't have a ton of injuries.

Just a thought.

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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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