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Nick Sorensen Assesses the 49ers' New Defensive Ends

"They're studs."

Grant Cohn

May 10, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen holds a press conference before the 49ers rookie minicamp at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA. Mandatory Credit: Robert Kupbens-USA TODAY Sports
May 10, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen holds a press conference before the 49ers rookie minicamp at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA. Mandatory Credit: Robert Kupbens-USA TODAY Sports / Robert Kupbens-USA TODAY Sports
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SANTA CLARA -- Two of the 49ers' most important additions this offseason were defensive ends Leonard Floyd and Yetur Gross-Matos.

Those two replaced Chase Young and Randy Gregory, who made no impact for the 49ers. So far through OTAs and minicamp, Floyd and Gross-Matos appear to be upgrades.

Here's what rookie defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen said about Leonard and Gross-Matos on Wednesday, courtesy of the 49ers P.R. department.

ME: There’s no pads, but what are you seeing from the two new defense ends, DL Leonard, Floyd and DL Yetur Gross-Matos?

SORENSEN: “A lot of explosiveness. You're right, it's hard to evaluate D-Linemen. But you still watch all the individual and stuff like that. They know how to practice too, so it's like you want to show the explosiveness and every now and then when you get a chance to win, let's win, but stay away from the quarterback. And obviously Leonard's got a ton of experience in doing that for so long. The other thing too about them that I see is like, they're studs, like stud guys. They just go. Leonard acts like he’s just barely trying to make the team. He just goes every single day. He doesn't get tired. That part's been awesome, him and Yetur, and [DL] Jordan [Elliott] was going the same way. I feel like all the guys that we brought in are 49er guys, all the rookies, whether they're drafted or undrafted, all the free agents. And that's to me why this offseason's been so fun. It's been so fun because our guys have worked so hard and including our coaches. When you put hard work into it and then you start to see it come out in the communication and dealing with the shifts and the motions that our offense gives us that a lot of the league does as well, it makes it really, really fun, especially when they're working so hard.”

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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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