The 49ers’ Best Moves in Free Agency

Let's rank the top three.

Grant Cohn | Mar 21, 2024

The 49ers’ Best Moves in Free Agency /

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San Francisco 49ers

Some of the 49ers signings have been better than others. Here are three best ones.

1. Leonard Floyd

He instantly becomes the best pass rusher the 49ers have had opposite Nick Bosa. Yes, even better than Dee Ford, who never was truly healthy on the 49ers. In three years with the team, he started just two games and played a measly 378 snaps. Meanwhile, Floyd hasn't missed a game in six years, and has recorded at least nine sacks four seasons in a row. He's remarkably consistent as a pass rusher. As a run defender, he's nothing special, but the 49ers signed someone else to set the edge.

2. Yetur Gross-Matos

He instantly becomes the 49ers' best run defender on the edge since they had Samson Ebukam. In addition, Gross-Matos has untapped potential as an interior pass rusher on third downs, similar to the way the 49ers used defensive ends Arden Key and Charles Omenihu the past few seasons.

3. Joshua Dobbs

He instantly becomes the best backup quarterback the 49ers have had since Brock Purdy was a backup. Dobbs is a great fit for the 49ers because he's extremely cheap, he's not competing to be the starter, he accepts being a backup, he has starting experience, he's extremely smart and decisive, he can avoid pressure and scramble and he can win with the 49ers if they need him to play. In lots of ways, he's the perfect backup for Purdy because their play styles are so similar. Great signing.

Published Mar 21, 2024

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.