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Which Linebacker Will Replace Dre Greenlaw in the 49ers Defense?

Some people believe the 49ers would have won the Super Bowl a few months if Dre Greenlaw simply hadn't torn his Achilles' tendon running onto the field.

Grant Cohn

January 20, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw (57) celebrates after defeating the Green Bay Packers in a 2024 NFC divisional round game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
January 20, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw (57) celebrates after defeating the Green Bay Packers in a 2024 NFC divisional round game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports / Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
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Some people believe the 49ers would have won the Super Bowl a few months if Dre Greenlaw simply hadn't torn his Achilles' tendon running onto the field.

Greenlaw went down with 9:26 remaining in the second quarter. At that point in the game, the Chiefs had scored no points. Their offense was struggling to move the ball. Then Oren Burks stepped in at linebacker, and the Chiefs targeted him mercilessly and successfully, and they won.

Now Burks is on the Eagles. So who will fill in for Greenlaw this season until he returns?

This offseason, the 49ers signed veteran linebacker De'Vondre Campbell to replace Burks and fill in for Greenlaw, but Cambell will be 32 this season and he just got cut by the Packers. And that's because he was awful last year. He gave up a passer rating of 111.2 when targeted, as opposed to Burks who gave up a passer rating of 61.4 during the regular season.

Which means it's quite possible that Campbell actually is a downgrade from Burks. And that wouldn't be good for the 49ers.

Fortunately for them, they drafted two linebackers last year -- Dee Winters and Jalen Graham. Plus this year they drafted another one -- Tatum Bethune. The 49ers need just one of them to step up and play better than Campbell.

And one did step up and play better than Campbell during OTAs and minicamp. And that linebacker was Dee Winters according to All Pro Fred Warner. He called Winters the 49ers' best player in all of OTAs. HIgh praise from a great player.

If Winters becomes a quality starter for the 49ers, their defense could be the best in the league.

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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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