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Why the 49ers Reportedly Will Sign Safety Tracy Walker

Walker, 29, has played all six seasons of his career with the Detroit Lions.

Grant Cohn

Detroit Lions safety Tracy Walker III (21) is being introduced before the Green Bay Packers game at Ford Field in Detroit on Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023.
Detroit Lions safety Tracy Walker III (21) is being introduced before the Green Bay Packers game at Ford Field in Detroit on Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK
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The 49ers are on the verge of a significant transaction.

No, I'm not talking about Brandon Aiyuk, although it seems he will get traded soon. I'm talking about the veteran safety they're going to sign.

The 49ers are in the process of signing Tracy Walker according to The Athletic. Walker, 29, has played all six seasons of his career with the Detroit Lions. And from 2019 to 2021, he was a quality starter. Maybe not a difference-maker, but an asset to Detroit's defense. That's why in 2022, they gave him a three-year, $25 million contract extension.

But later that year, he tore his Achilles. So he played in only three games that season. And then in 2023, he started six games early in the season and then got benched, played the rest of the season on special teams and was inactive in the playoffs. Then the Lions released him a few months ago. So it's unclear how much Walker has left in the tank.

Still, there must be a reason the 49ers are signing him in particular right now.

It's worth noting that starting strong safety Talanoa Hufanga hasn't practiced at all this offseason and might not be ready to start Week 1 against the New York Jets. If that's the case, the next man up would be George Odum, who's having a good camp. But he's 30 and has started just 10 games in his career. As opposed to Walker, who has started 43.

So the 49ers have options just in case Hufanga isn't ready.

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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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