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The 49ers are Still Trying to Replace DeForest Buckner

One of the biggest mistakes Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch ever made was trading DeForest Buckner to the Colts for a first-round pick.

Grant Cohn

Indianapolis Colts defensive tackle DeForest Buckner (99) smiles Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024, during a game against the Buffalo Bills at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
Indianapolis Colts defensive tackle DeForest Buckner (99) smiles Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024, during a game against the Buffalo Bills at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. / Grace Smith/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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One of the biggest mistakes Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch ever made was trading DeForest Buckner to the Colts for a first-round pick.

The 49ers used that pick to draft Buckner's replacement -- Javon Kinlaw. But Kinlaw was a huge disappointment, so the 49ers replaced him by signing Javon Hargrave to the contract they should have given Buckner in the first place. And Hargrave was a huge disappointment too, so the 49ers plan to release him when the new league year starts on March 12.

Which means five years after the 49ers foolishly traded Buckner, they still have to replace him.

And that's why CBS Sports predicts the 49ers to draft Texas A&M defensive lineman Shemar Stewart with the 11th pick.

"It was not long ago that San Francisco had DeForest Buckner, Javon Kinlaw and Arik Armstead," writes CBS analyst Josh Edwards. "Javon Hargrave was the only one of any consequence who the 49ers have brought into the building. Moving forward, they must embrace their roots and reinvest in the defensive line."

Just for clarification, the 49ers never had Buckner and Kinlaw on the team at the same time. And when Robert Saleh was the defensive coordinator, Armstead started at defensive end, not defensive tackle. Saleh wanted someone heavier in the middle.

Stewart is tall and lean like Buckner and Armstead, but he may not be able to stop the run as a defensive tackle in the Wide 9.

They really should have just kept Buckner.

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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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