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Report: 49ers Had Formal Meeting with Oregon OT Josh Conerly Jr.

Conerly's stock is on the rise. He almost certainly will get drafted in Round 1 because he's seen as a true offensive tackle prospect in a draft that lacks good ones.

Grant Cohn

Jan 1, 2024; Glendale, AZ, USA; Oregon Ducks offensive lineman Josh Conerly Jr. (76) against the Liberty Flames during the 2024 Fiesta Bowl at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Jan 1, 2024; Glendale, AZ, USA; Oregon Ducks offensive lineman Josh Conerly Jr. (76) against the Liberty Flames during the 2024 Fiesta Bowl at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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It's no secret the 49ers need to draft an offensive tackle.

Trent Williams, the left tackle, will be 37 in July. Colton McKivitz, the right tackle, will be a free agent next year. And Jaylon Moore, the swing tackle, recently signed with the Chiefs. Which means the 49ers definitely will draft at least one offensive tackle this year.

And that tackle could be Oregon's Josh Conerly Jr. He reportedly had a formal meeting with the 49ers at the NFL Scouting Combine in February according to Aaron Wilson.

Conerly's stock is on the rise. He almost certainly will get drafted in Round 1 because he's seen as a true offensive tackle prospect in a draft that lacks good ones.

The top offensive tackle prospect in the draft is Missouri's Armand Membou. He most likely will get taken in the top 5 picks. After him, there's LSU's Will Campbell, Texas' Kelvin Banks Jr. and Conerly.

Campbell is a terrific athlete, but his arms are so short, he might have to play guard or even center.

Banks is a solid athlete, but not a great one, and lots of draft analysts believe he's a better fit at guard than tackle.

And then there's Conerly. He's a better athlete than Banks and he has longer arms than Campbell. So Conerly might be the second-highest-graded offensive tackle on their draft board.

Keep in mind, the 49ers have had lots of success drafting Oregon players the past 10 years. Their past three draft picks who went to Oregon were Arik Armstead, DeForest Buckner and Deommodore Lenoir -- three terrific players.

Maybe Conerly will be the fourth.

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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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