The 49ers should sign Larry Warford

Pick up a freaking phone, John.

Grant Cohn | May 10, 2020

First Trent Williams fell in the 49ers’ laps. Now Larry Worford could, too.

Williams is the best left tackle in the NFL -- the 49ers got him a for a third-round pick. All of a sudden, Warford is a free agent. How lucky can the 49ers get?

Warford is one of the league’s best right guards. The Saints released him Friday, didn’t want to pay him $12 million in 2020. Replaced him with a rookie -- Cesar Ruiz.

Big loss for the Saints. Big potential gain for the 49ers.

John Lynch should call Warford’s agent today and offer his client a contract. Warford has gone to the Pro Bowl each of the past three seasons and still is only 28. He specializes in pass protection. Has allowed just seven sacks the past three seasons. And pass protection at right guard has hurt the 49ers since Kyle Shanahan became the head coach.

When the 49ers go to hurry-up mode and the opposing defense knows they have to pass, the opponent usually puts its best defensive tackle across from the 49ers’ right guard.

Advantage: Defensive tackle. Every time.

We’ve seen the Rams put Aaron Donald across from the 49ers’ right guards the past few seasons, and we saw the Chiefs put Chris Jones across from Mike Person in the Super Bowl. Person couldn’t block Jones or stop him from batting down passes. Person was one of the main reasons the 49ers lost. Now he’s gone. The 49ers released him and replaced him with his backup, Daniel Brunskill.

Risky.

Why hope and pray for Brunskill to succeed at right guard, when the 49ers simply can sign Warford and not worry about that position any more?

The 49ers currently have $15 million in cap space, and they have to save some money for George Kittle’s contact extension. The Kittle factor makes signing Warford tricky. But the 49ers can back-load Kittle’s deal, meaning Kittle’s salary can start low and increase yearly.

The 49ers also can create almost $5 million of additional cap space by trading running back Tevin Coleman for a draft pick. They probably would receive no more than a late-sixth-round pick for him, but they should trade him anyway.

Make more cap space. Sign Warford. And strengthen the only glaring weakness remaining on the roster.

Pick up a freaking phone, John.

Published May 10, 2020

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.