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PFF Ranks 49ers WR Jauan Jennings No. 18 Among NFL Wide Receivers

Jauan Jennings is the most improved player on the 49ers.

Grant Cohn

Dec 12, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Jauan Jennings (15) looks towards the sideline before a play against the Los Angeles Rams in the second quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images
Dec 12, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Jauan Jennings (15) looks towards the sideline before a play against the Los Angeles Rams in the second quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images / Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images
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Jauan Jennings is the most improved player on the 49ers.

Last season, he caught just 19 passes. This season, he's 77 yards away from 1,000 -- a milestone he never has hit, not even in college. He replaced Brandon Aiyuk at the X position when Aiyuk went down for the season with a gruesome knee injury and played like an upper-echelon wide receiver.

That's why Pro Football Focus ranks Jennings no. 18 among NFL wide receivers entering Week 18.

"Jennings caught seven passes for 67 yards on Monday night," writes PFF analyst Lauren Gray. "He recorded two catches of 10-plus yards, with his longest grab gaining 15 yards. Six of Jennings’ 10 targets came in 2-minute situations, where he secured four passes for 40 yards and a first down. He has 18 targets, 12 catches, 154 receiving yards, seven first downs and a 72.5 PFF receiving grade in those situations this season."

Jennings is one of the slowest wide receivers in the NFL, but he's one of the most physical, competitive and confident wide receivers as well. Obviously, he's not a deep threat. Which means he probably isn't a true no. 1 wide receiver, either. But he's an elite secondary option behind future Hall of Fame tight end George Kittle. Surround those two with Ricky Pearsall and Brandon Aiyuk, and the 49ers have an outstanding group of receivers that doesn't need Deebo Samuel anymore. He's more of a running back/kick returner than a wide receiver at this stage of his career, anyway.

Salute to Jennings for emerging as such a terrific player.

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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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