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Will the 49ers Trade for Patriots Wide Receiver Kendrick Bourne?

If the 49ers are serious about contending and winning the Super Bowl this season, they'll trade for Bourne or a wide receiver like him.

Grant Cohn

Sep 29, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; New England Patriots wide receiver Kendrick Bourne (84) before the start of the game against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Neville E. Guard-Imagn Images
Sep 29, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; New England Patriots wide receiver Kendrick Bourne (84) before the start of the game against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Neville E. Guard-Imagn Images / Neville E. Guard-Imagn Images
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SANTA CLARA -- The 49ers need a wide receiver.

Deebo Samuel has pneumonia. Jauan Jennings has a hip injury. And Brandon Aiyuk is out for the season with a torn ACL and MCL. Samuel and Jennings might play this Sunday night against the Cowboys but Aiyuk obviously will not, which means the 49ers have to replace him.

This offseason when the 49ers considered trading Aiyuk to Pittsburgh, they wouldn't do so unless they could get a wide receiver back in the deal. So the 49ers clearly didn't like the idea of replacing Aiyuk with someone currently on the roster.

And multiple times, the 49ers were linked to New England Patriots wide receiver Kendrick Bourne. Bourne played the first four seasons of his career with the 49ers, and head coach Kyle Shanahan has said he loves Bourne like a son.

But in 2021, Bourne hit free agency and signed a lucrative deal with the Patriots which the 49ers didn't have the budget to match. So he left. But now the Patriots are tanking and the 49ers need a veteran wide receiver who knows Shanahan's system, isn't too expensive and can play right away.

That's Bourne.

If the 49ers are serious about contending and winning the Super Bowl this season, they'll trade for Bourne or a wide receiver like him. He would cost the 49ers a late-round pick and instantly would improve the offense.

If they don't trade for Bourne a different wide receiver, you have to wonder if the 49ers think their Super Bowl window is closed.

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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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