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Renardo Green is a Game Changer for the 49ers Defense

Green is too good to take off the field.

Grant Cohn

Oct 6, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers cornerback Renardo Green (0) before the game against the Arizona Cardinals at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
Oct 6, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers cornerback Renardo Green (0) before the game against the Arizona Cardinals at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images / Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
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The 49ers just found another keeper.

Rookie cornerback Renardo Green is ready to start and make a big impact on the 49ers defense. He was one of their best players in their 36-24 win over the Seattle Seahawks this past Thursday night. He was targeted 12 times and he gave up just four catches plus he intercepted a pass. He was the 49ers' best cornerback on the field. And it was his first career start.

Green played only because veteran cornerback Charvarius Ward was a late scratch with a knee injury. With Ward sidelined, Isaac Yiadom became a full-time starter next to Deommodore Lenoir and Green became the no. 3 cornerback in the nickel defense. He ended up playing 91 percent of the defensive snaps.

Now Green is too good to take off the field. At the minimum, he needs to take Yiadom's spot as the no. 3 cornerback when Ward returns. Because Yiadom is solid, but he has intercepted just two passes in seven career seasons. He's not a playmaker. Green is one. Plus his coverage is stickier than Yiadom's.

Or the 49ers could trade Charvarius Ward before the trade deadline and make Green a full-time starter. Ward is a Pro Bowl cornerback who will be a free agent in the offseason and the 49ers probably won't re-sign him because they have to extend Brock Purdy and Lenoir. Which means the 49ers could decide to trade Ward before he hits free agency now that they've seen how good Green is.

Stay tuned.

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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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