The San Francisco 49ers front office during general manager’s John Lynch’s tenure has had some pretty significant missteps to go along with a bevy of home runs that have allowed the club to remain competitive when healthy for the last six seasons.
While gaffes like the Trey Lance trade stand out, there’s another, under-the-radar mistake Lynch and the front office actually have a chance to correct in the 2025 offseason.
Former New York Jets cornerback DJ Reed is set to hit the open market as an unrestricted free agent when the new league year opens in the middle of March.
Reed originally entered the NFL as a fifth-round pick by the 49ers in the 2018 draft. It looked after his second season like Reed was working his way into a regular role in the 49ers’ secondary as a versatile safety. In the 2020 offseason he suffered a chest injury San Francisco deemed to be season-ending. They waived him with an injury designation, meaning he’d revert to season-ending IR for San Francisco as long as he cleared waivers.
“That’s a tough one for us,” Lynch said at the time in a press conference on Zoom. “The earliest we might’ve had D.J. back, was early November, but it’s a four-to-six month injury.”
The 49ers have done this a handful of times without issue, but in 2020 it backfired. When Reed hit waivers, the Seattle Seahawks pounced. Reed wound up playing in 10 games that year and a career-high 560 snaps for the Seahawks. It also proved to be a breakout campaign for Reed who moved to cornerback full time.
While the 49ers had trouble piecing together a secondary in the years after Reed’s exit, he thrived. Now he’s a free agent and San Francisco could use a third CB to play alongside Deommodore Lenoir and Renardo Green. There’s an opportunity for Lynch and the 49ers front office to bring Reed back after his unceremonious exit before the 2020 campaign.
Of course, Reed just turned 28 and has been an excellent starting CB with the Jets for the three years after his two-year Seattle tenure. He has two interceptions and 32 pass breakups the last three seasons to go along with 220 tackles, seven tackles for loss and 1.0 sacks.
He may get priced out of what the 49ers are willing to spend on a third starting CB, but they should absolutely be in the market to try and correct a mistake they made in letting Reed out the door in the first place.