Kevin Givens has made D.J. Jones Expendable

The 49ers' best player is The Next Man Up.

Grant Cohn | Dec 3, 2020

The 49ers' best player is The Next Man Up.

Almost every time someone on the 49ers gets injured, it seems The Next Man Up is even better than the starter.

This past Sunday, The Next Man Up was Kevin Givens, who replaced nose tackle D.J. Jones in the starting lineup. Jones is an excellent nose tackle, and his absence could have hurt the 49ers ability to stop the Rams rushing attack if Givens were a stiff.

But Givens is not a stiff. Givens is at least as good as Jones, maybe better.

And against the Rams, Givens made an impact on the 49ers' first defensive play, when he knifed into the backfield and blew up the Rams run. A couple plays later, he knifed into the backfield again and tackled the Rams running back for a three-yard loss.

Later during that opening drive, Givens recovered a fumble.

What a start for him.

But he wasn't done. During the third quarter, Givens hit Rams quarterback Jared Goff and forced an errant throw which rookie defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw picked off and returned for a touchdown. Givens made that play happen.

Givens, 23, was an undrafted free agent in 2019. He's built like Aaron Donald -- both are 6'1, 285 pounds. Of course, Givens is no Donald -- Donald is the best player in the league. But Givens is good, too.

So good, he probably has made D.J. Jones expendable. Jones will be an unrestricted free agent this offseason, and the 49ers may not have the cap space to re-sign him.

Now, they don't need to re-sign Jones, because they have The Next Man Up.

Watch a film breakdown of Givens' performance against the Rams.

Published Dec 3, 2020

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.