Will the 49ers Focus on Offense in the Draft?

The 49ers need an immediate contributor, and they've already brought back all 11 starters on offense, while there are a couple potential vacancies on defense.

Grant Cohn | Mar 17, 2024

Will the 49ers Focus on Offense in the Draft? /

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers have focused 100 percent of their attention on defense during free agency, so naturally they'll turn their attention to offense in the draft, right?

Maybe, maye not.

The 49ers need to draft an immediate starter with their first-round pick -- no more red-shirt players early in the draft. That didn't work out so well with Trey Lance. The 49ers need an immediate contributor, and they've already brought back all 11 starters on offense, while there are a couple potential vacancies on defense.

In addition, the theme of the 49ers offseason has been extremely clear: the offense was great last season and the defense underperformed, so the defense needs a bit of an overhaul while the offense just needs continuity.

All of this might mean that the 49ers could spend their first-round pick on a defensive player.

It's possible the 49ers will draft a wide receiver in Round 1 and then trade Deebo Samuel after June 1, but highly unlikely.

It's also possible the 49ers will draft an offensive line in Round 1 and sit him for a year, but that would be a waste of a first-round pick on a team that's Super Bowl window is still wide open. The 49ers need an impact player.

Which is why it's possible the 49ers will draft a safety in Round 1. It recently was reported that Talanoa Hufanga hasn't been assured he'll have a starting job next season -- he might be Ji'Ayir Brown's backup at strong safety. In which case, the 49ers need a starting free safety, because Tashaun Gipson is a free agent.

Don't be shocked if the 49ers focus on defense early in the draft. They just can't help themselves.

Published Mar 17, 2024

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.