Will the 49ers Trade Talanoa Hufanga?

Perhaps the Texans would like to trade for Hufanga, considering their head coach, DeMeco Ryans, was the 49ers defensive coordinator when Hufanga was an All Pro.
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An All Pro strong safety could be on the trade block.

Talanoa Hufanga might not start for the 49ers next season, according to Mike Silver. Hufanga is only 24, but he's coming off a torn ACL and he's eligible for an extension this offseason. Theoretically, he can ask for a big-time pay day, because he was an All Pro in 2022, meaning one of the top safeties in the NFL. But he can't ask for a big pay day if he isn't a starter.

Last year, the 49ers drafted strong safety Ji'Ayir Brown in Round 3, and when Hufanga tore his ACL, Brown replaced him in the starting lineup and played quite well -- he even intercepted Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl. It seems the 49ers think Brown is better than Hufanga.

It also seems the 49ers view them both as strong safeties, which is why they're in the market for free safeties and why Hufanga might not start next season. But if he becomes a bench player, wouldn't he have more value to the 49ers in a trade?

Wouldn't another team want a 24-year-old safety who had four interceptions in 2022 and three interceptions in 10 games in 2023? Sure, Hufanga gives up some big plays, but he also creates them consistently -- he's a play maker. And he should be relatively affordable considering he's coming off a torn ACL.

Perhaps the Texans would like to trade for Hufanga, considering their head coach, DeMeco Ryans, was the 49ers defensive coordinator when Hufanga was an All Pro.

Just a thought.


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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.