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SI Picks Deommodore Lenoir as the 49ers' Breakout Player for 2024

This will be the season when Lenoir gets the recognition he deserves.

Grant Cohn

October 8, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers cornerback Deommodore Lenoir (2) tackles Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Gallup (13) during the second quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
October 8, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers cornerback Deommodore Lenoir (2) tackles Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Gallup (13) during the second quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports / Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
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Last season, the 49ers' breakout players were Brandon Aiyuk and Charvarius Ward.

Ward went to his first Pro Bowl, and while Aiyuk wasn't a Pro Bowl selection, he was a second-team All Pro. Both had by far the best seasons of their careers.

Who will be the 49ers' breakout player this year? We're talking someone who never has been a Pro Bowler or an All Pro.

Recently, the publishers for FanNation On SI selected breakout candidates for all 32 teams, and for the 49ers I picked fourth-year cornerback Deommodore Lenoir.

"He’s entering the final season of his rookie contract, so he needs to perform well to get a big payday," I wrote. "And he has improved all three seasons he has been in the NFL. Last season, he started all 17 games, broke up 10 passes, intercepted three and gave up a passer rating of just 75.2 while playing both outside and in the slot. And he’s only 24."

When Lenoir first entered the NFL, he was a liability. He got benched after just two starts as a rookie and, in his second season he gave up lots of deep catches because he simply was too small and frail to challenge big wide receivers at the catch point.

Near the end of his second season, something shifted. Lenoir began to break up and intercept passes at a much higher rate. Suddenly, he wasn't a liability at all -- he was a weapon for the 49ers. And he carried over that performance to last season when he started every game and gave up just one touchdown catch.

This will be the season when Lenoir gets the recognition he deserves.

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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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