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Realistic Expectations for Deommodore Lenoir

Lenoir simply does not have the speed nor the acceleration to cover good NFL wide receivers.

Grant Cohn

Expectations among 49ers fans for fifth-round pick Deommodore Lenoir are sky high because of this one play he made two weeks ago during rookie mini-camp.

Impressive play. Unfortunately, Lenoir was covering undrafted free agent wide receiver Austin Watkins, who makes every cornerback look like Deion Sanders.

Here's what it looks like when Lenoir covers Brandon Aiyuk:

Lenoir simply does not have the speed nor the acceleration to cover good NFL wide receivers. Which means the 49ers almost certainly did not draft him in Round 5 with the intention of ever starting him at cornerback.

Lenoir might become a backup cornerback in the future for the 49ers. But for him to earn a starter's role, it most likely will have to be at nickelback. And that's probably where the 49ers envision him playing.

Remember, last year the 49ers lost their backup nickelback, D.J. Reed, whom they waived him with a non-football injury designation. Perhaps they assumed he would clear waivers and they could sign him to their practice squad.

But the next day, the Seattle Seahawks signed Reed. And by the end of the 2020 season, he was one of their starting outside cornerbacks -- not a mere nickelback.

The 49ers made a big mistake.

Lenoir is their attempt to fix their mistake. They need a young nickelback to replace the one they never should have waived -- Reed. Because their starting nickelback, K'Waun Williams, will be 30 in July and a free agent in 2022.

Which means the 49ers probably hope Lenoir can replace Williams a year from now. 

That's a realistic expectation.

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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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