The 49ers Found a Gem in Ji'Ayir Brown

Pro Football Focus loves Brown -- his PFF grade this season is a stellar 86.9.

Grant Cohn | Dec 12, 2023

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San Francisco 49ers

For most teams, losing an All Pro safety would be a devastating blow. Not for the 49ers.

They lost Talanoa Hufanga to a torn ACL a few weeks ago, and he'll miss the rest of the season. Hufanga was a Pro Bowler and an All Pro last season, as he intercepted four passes and recorded two sacks -- he was a playmaker. And he still was this season before his knee injury, although his performance had fallen off a bit.

Pro Football Focus gave Hufanga a 70.5 grade this season, which is respectable. Last season, his PFF grade was 68.8. So the advanced analytics don't necessarily see him as an All Pro elite player. The advanced analytics see him as a serviceable player.

Conversely, Pro Football Focus loves Brown -- his PFF grade this season is a stellar 86.9. He currently is the third-highest-graded player on the 49ers defense behind Nick Bosa (93.1) and Fred Warner (90.6). Which means the 49ers defense is getting better as Brown gets more comfortable in his starting role.

As good as Hufanga is. and he certainly is a quality player, Brown is faster, more explosive, better in coverage and a harder hitter. He's just better. When he's playing free safety, he has range to get to the sideline and break up deep passes, as he showed Sunday against the Seahawks. Hufanga doesn't have that kind of range.

Next season, Brown and Hufanga should be the 49ers starting safeties, and they could play together for a decade.

Published Dec 12, 2023

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.