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Will the 49ers Trade for Khalil Mack?

Remember, the 49ers tried to trade for Mack in 2018, and believed they made the best offer for him.

Grant Cohn

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The 49ers have to acquire a starting defensive end this offseason, and Khalil Mack is available.

The Chargers are willing to trade Mack, according to The Athletic's Dianna Russini, who says that some teams around the league believe that the Chargers might even cut Mack soon. That's because he'll cost the Chargers $38.5 million against the salary cap this season and they're more than $20 million over the cap right now. So they might need to move him or cut him before the new league year starts on Wednesday.

Enter the 49ers.

Technically, they're not the favorite to land Mack. According to BetUS, the Lions are the favorite to land him -- they have +200 odds. Meanwhile, the 49ers have +2500. They're a dark horse in this race.

But remember, the 49ers tried to trade for Mack in 2018, and believed they made the best offer for him. But the Raiders decided to spite the 49ers and trade Mack to the Bears instead. The Raiders were playing in Oakland at the time and apparently didn't want to help their cross-bay rivals.

So the 49ers have long admired Mack. And although he's 33, he's still a great player -- he had 17 sacks last season. And if he goes to the Lions, they could overtake the 49ers as the best team in the NFC.

I don't expect the 49ers to trade for Mack, but if the Chargers release him, which is quite likely, I wouldn't be shocked if the 49ers were to sign him.

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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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