Do the 49ers Have a Starting Nickelback?

The 49ers starting nickel the past five seasons, K'Waun Williams, is a quality player, but he signed with the Broncos this offseason.

Grant Cohn | Jun 17, 2022

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers will have an open competition at nickelback this offseason between four defensive backs. But does competition always produce a quality player if none of the competitors are starting-caliber?

The 49ers starting nickel the past five seasons, K'Waun Williams, is a quality player, but he signed with the Broncos this offseason. Maybe the 49ers wanted to get younger (Williams will be 31 this upcoming season). Or maybe they simply couldn't afford him because they STILL have Jimmy Garoppolo and his expensive contract on their books.

Either way, the 49ers' remaining nickelbacks are Darqueze Dennard, who's 30, Dontae Johnson, who also is 30, Deommodore Lenoir, who gives up big plays, and Samuel Womack, who's a rookie fifth-round pick.

Dennard and Johnson are veterans who can play multiple positions, but they're definite downgrades from Williams. Lenoir, a fifth-round pick in 2021, had a strong start to his rookie season as he drew positive reviews in training camp and preseason, but in the regular season he gave up a passer rating of 125.4 and quickly got benched.

That's probably why the 49ers spent another fifth-round pick this year on a potential nickelback in Womack. In OTAs and minicamp, he showed promise in man-to-man coverage. He also used his hands quite a bit, which could lead to penalties during the season, plus he hasn't played with the starters yet, meaning he hasn't covered the 49ers' best receivers. But he almost certainly will during training camp.

It's possible Womack will assert himself as a solid nickel who's ready to start Week 1 of his rookie season.

Barring that, what's the plan here?

Published Jun 17, 2022

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.