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Will the 49ers Draft Running Back Ashton Jeanty in Round 1?

Jeanty most likely will be the best player available.

Grant Cohn

Nov 23, 2024; Laramie, Wyoming, USA; Boise State Broncos running back and Heisman Trophy candidate Ashton Jeanty (2) runs for a touchdown against the Wyoming Cowboys during the first quarter at Jonah Field at War Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Babbitt-Imagn Images
Nov 23, 2024; Laramie, Wyoming, USA; Boise State Broncos running back and Heisman Trophy candidate Ashton Jeanty (2) runs for a touchdown against the Wyoming Cowboys during the first quarter at Jonah Field at War Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Babbitt-Imagn Images / Troy Babbitt-Imagn Images
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The 49ers currently pick 11th in the NFL Draft and Heisman Trophy runner-up Ashton Jeanty could be available. Will the 49ers take him?

Jeanty played running back at Boise State and rushed for 2,497 yards and 29 touchdowns this season. He also caught 77 passes in three years, so he's a complete running back and a generational talent.

Most mock drafts project the 49ers to pass on Jeanty and pick an offensive tackle or a defensive lineman instead, which would make tons of sense. The 49ers are thin in the trenches. They definitely could use a difference-maker on either line.

But Jeanty most likely will be the best player available. And the 49ers have a big need at running back, too. Christian McCaffrey currently is rehabbing an injured PCL and will be 29 next season. He may never be able to carry the 49ers the way he did in 2022 and 2023. And without him, the 49ers have been mediocre at best.

Kyle Shanahan can turn almost any running back into a 1,000-yard rusher -- his father could do that, too. But to win, the Shanahans usually have relied upon dominant running backs who could be the focal point of the attack. Think Terrell Davis once upon a time, Raheem Mostert in 2019, Deebo Samuel in 2021 and McCaffrey until this year.

Shanahan passed on McCaffrey in the 2017 draft to take defensive lineman Solomon Thomas instead -- a decision that seemed smart at the time, but in retrospect was a massive blunder. Don't be surprised if Shanahan takes the running back this time around.

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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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