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Who Will Start on the Defensive Line for the 49ers in 2025?

The 49ers defense wasn't exactly great last season, and they just made it worse.

Grant Cohn

Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa (97) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa (97) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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The 49ers defense wasn't exactly great last season, and they just made it worse.

They released three starters -- Javon Hargrave, Maliek Collins and Leonard Floyd -- and signed no one to replace them. Meanwhile, Floyd signed a one-year, $10 million deal with the Falcons, Collins signed a two-year, $20 million deal with the Browns and Hargrave signed a two-year, $30 million deal with the Vikings. There were markets for those players.

As things currently stand, the 49ers' starting defensive line is Nick Bosa, Kevin Givens, Jordan Elliott and Yetur Gross-Matos. That's awful.

Givens is a 285-pound career backup who missed nine games with a torn pectoral muscle last season. Elliott is a poor run defender who had zero sacks in 441 snaps. And Gross Matos also is a poor run defender who missed six games with a knee injury.

Considering Gross-Matos' cap hit for 2025 is $9.4 million, they probably expect him to start, which means he would play defensive end on first and second down and then move to defensive tackle on third down. So look for the 49ers to draft a designated pass rusher who can replace Gross-Matos on the edge in passing situations.

Elliott's cap hit is $3.4 million, which means he could start as well unless the 49ers draft two Day 1 starters at defensive tackle next month. They almost certainly will draft one, perhaps in the first round, but landing two could be difficult. Still, Elliott will have to compete for this job.

If the 49ers draft well, in a couple years their defensive line could be dominant. But this year, it seems the D-line will take a step backward before it takes any steps forward.

PROJECTED BASE FRONT

DE: Nick Bosa

DT: Rookie

DT: Rookie

DE: Yetur Gross-Matos

PROJECTED NICKEL FRONT

DE: Nick Bosa

DT: Rookie

DT: Yetur Gross-Matos

DE: Rookie

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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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