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Will the 49ers Trade for Indianapolis Colts DT DeForest Buckner?

Suddenly, defensive tackle is one of the thinnest positions on the roster.

Grant Cohn

Indianapolis Colts defensive tackle DeForest Buckner (99) warms up before facing the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023, at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C.
Indianapolis Colts defensive tackle DeForest Buckner (99) warms up before facing the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023, at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C. / Jenna Watson/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK
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Frankly, the 49ers never should have traded DeForest Buckner to the Colts in the first place.

The 49ers never have been able to replace him. Both Arik Armstead and Javon Kinlaw are now gone, and Javon Hargrave is on Injured Reserve with a torn triceps. Now the 49ers' starting defensive tackles are Maliek Collins and Jordan Elliott, who are serviceable but unspectacular.

And suddenly, defensive tackle is one of the thinnest positions on the roster.

"Internally, there have been discussions about going after marquee players and more affordable, less glamorous options alike," writes Michael Silver of The Athletic. "Could three-time Pro Bowl selection DeForest Buckner, the team’s 2016 first-round pick who was dealt to the Indianapolis Colts after the 2019 season, be reacquired via trade?"

Buckner his missed all but the first two games this season with an ankle injury. This week, the Colts list him as questionable to play. Perhaps they'd be willing to trade him because he's getting older and he'll be expensive the next two seasons. Which means the 49ers might not be able to afford him.

"(Trading for Buckner) seems unlikely," writes Silver, "but another key player from that 2019 team, D.J. Jones (now with the Denver Broncos), might be a realistic target."

Jones will be a free agent after this season and he's relatively affordable, so he would be a good addition, particularly to a run defense that has struggled all season.

Expect the 49ers to add a defensive lineman at the trade deadline if they beat the Cowboys this Sunday night.

If they lose to Dallas, the 49ers could be trade deadline sellers.

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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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