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PFF Ranks 49ers LB De'Vondre Campbell 19th Among NFL Linebackers

Pro Football Focus has an extremely high opinion of the 49ers' second choice to replace Dre Greenlaw while he recovers from an Achilles tear.

Grant Cohn

Green Bay Packers linebacker De'Vondre Campbell (59) celebrates his fumble recovery with linebacker Isaiah McDuffie (58) during their football game Sunday, November 5, 2023, at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis.
Green Bay Packers linebacker De'Vondre Campbell (59) celebrates his fumble recovery with linebacker Isaiah McDuffie (58) during their football game Sunday, November 5, 2023, at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis. / Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin /
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Pro Football Focus has an extremely high opinion of the 49ers' second choice to replace Dre Greenlaw while he recovers from an Achilles tear.

First, the 49ers tried to sign linebacker Eric Kendricks, but he backed out of the deal and signed a longer one with the Cowboys. So the 49ers signed De'Vondre Campbell to a one-year deal as a consolation.

Recently, PFF ranked the 32 best linebackers in the NFL. Surprisingly, neither Greenlaw nor Kendricks made the list, but Campbell did. He ranked 19th.

"Campbell should be a nice addition for the 49ers' defense, giving them cover while Dre Greenlaw works his way back from injury," writes PFF analyst Gordon McGuiness. "Campbell didn't manage to hit the heights of his 2021 campaign with the Packers in the past two years, but he has earned PFF grades above 65.0 in each of the past three seasons."

Campbell played the first three seasons of his career with the Falcons. Then he played the past three seasons with the Packers where he was an All Pro in 2021 when he recorded a whopping 146 tackles. But he'll be 31 in July, and last season he missed six games with ankle and neck injuries. And even when he was on the field, the Packers run defense struggled big time.

But even at his age, Campbell excels in pass coverage, particularly zone coverage, similar to 49ers middle linebacker Fred Warner. And when Greenlaw returns, the three of these linebackers should form an excellent duo if all three remain healthy.

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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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