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The 49ers Met with Michigan CB Will Johnson at the Combine

This would be an unusual pick for the 49ers.

Grant Cohn

Feb 27, 2025; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Michigan defensive back Will Johnson (DB17) during the 2025 NFL Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tanner Pearson-Imagn Images
Feb 27, 2025; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Michigan defensive back Will Johnson (DB17) during the 2025 NFL Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tanner Pearson-Imagn Images / Tanner Pearson-Imagn Images
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INDIANAPOLIS -- This would be an unusual pick for the 49ers.

Michigan cornerback Will Johnson confirmed to On SI this week that he has had a formal meeting with the 49ers this week at the NFL Scouting Combine. Johnson is considered the top cornerback in this year's draft, which means he might not be available for the 49ers who currently own the 11th pick.

If Johnson is available and the 49ers take him, he would be the highest draft they've spent on a cornerback since they made Ronnie Lott the eighth pick in 1981. In fact, last year the 49ers spent the last pick in Round 2 on cornerback Renardo Green, and he was the highest pick the 49ers have spent on a corner since Shawntae Spencer in 2002.

The 49ers generally prefer to wait until Round 3 to take cornerbacks. But that could change now that Robert Saleh is back as the defensive coordinator.

When Saleh was the New York Jets head coach, they drafted cornerback Sauce Gardner with the fourth pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, and he was a major success for their team. Perhaps Saleh will want another elite cornerback to coach on the 49ers now that he understands the full benefits of having such a good player at this position.

Or maybe the 49ers are just doing their due diligence before they draft another defensive lineman or wide receiver in Round 1. Too soon to tell.

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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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