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Javon Hargrave Was the 49ers' Biggest Disappointment of 2023

Hargrave is 31, and the 49ers can't get rid of him.

Grant Cohn

Nov 23, 2023; Seattle, Washington, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle Javon Hargrave (98) celebrates after a sack against the Seattle Seahawks during the second quarter at Lumen Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 23, 2023; Seattle, Washington, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle Javon Hargrave (98) celebrates after a sack against the Seattle Seahawks during the second quarter at Lumen Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports / Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

Signing Javon Hargrave was the worst move the 49ers made last year.

They gave him a four-year, $84 million contract. And to clear up the salary cap space to afford him, the 49ers had to let lots of quality defensive players go, players such as Jimmie Ward, Azeez Al-Shaair, Samson Ebukam and Charles Omenihu.

In hindsight, the 49ers would have been so much better off keeping those four players and not signing Hargrave. Because without those four, the 49ers run defense fell off a cliff. Hargrave simply isn't stout against the run. And as a pass rusher, he recorded just 7 sacks and the 49ers' pass rush was decidedly mediocre even with him on the field.

Now Hargrave is 31, and the 49ers can't get rid of him. He's signed through 2026. Even in 2027, when he won't be under contract, he'll still cost the 49ers more than $10 million against the cap because of a void year in his contract. So he needs to produce.

Hargrave needs to be an impact player both against the run and the pass for the next three seasons or else the 49ers are in trouble. In 2025, his cap number will balloon to $28.1 million. Then in 2026, it will go up again to $29.8 million. To earn that money, Hargrave will have to give the 49ers much more than 7 sacks and poor run defense. He'll have to get in better shape and play much harder than he did in 2023.

Let's see what Hargrave has left.

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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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