Jamien Sherwood was mentioned as a potential signing by the Niners this offseason
There’s a potential for plenty of moving parts this offseason for the San Francisco 49ers. One position is linebacker, where the Niners will decide what to do with pending free agent Dre Greenlaw.
If you saw how much better in every facet and how intimidating the defense was late in the season against the Los Angeles Rams, you’d be hard-pressed not to want Greenlaw back in the fold for the 2025 regular season. But the 49ers need a player they can count on for 90 percent of the season, not 9 percent.
The player who would replace Greenlaw is Dee Winters, who will enter his third year with the team. Winters showed plenty of flashes this past season but was on the injury report seemingly after every game.
The question is how many players Robert Saleh will bring with him from the New York Jets. One NFL executive says to keep an eye on linebacker Jamien Sherwood, who was drafted in the fifth round out of the SEC, just like Greenlaw, when Saleh was with the Jets in 2021.
Sherwood was ESPN’s 37th-ranked free agent and is only 25:
The tape is trending up on Sherwood after he posted 154 tackles, 10 tackles for loss and 3 pass breakups with the Jets this season. Sherwood can play downhill with speed, cutting off the ball and pursuing the edges. And I see coverage upside here, too. Sherwood is a three-down player with special teams coverage ability, and his best football is ahead of him.
Fowler’s latest: Three different personnel evaluators brought up Sherwood to me unprompted when discussing the free agency class. Watch for Atlanta, which features a lot of former Jets staffing, or San Francisco, where former Jets coach Robert Saleh now runs the defense.
This was Sherwood’s first full season as a starter. His game logs are impressive. Sherwood had games of 12, 13, 11, 17, 19, and 10 tackles last season. He had two other games with nine and eight tackles, respectively.
He’s listed at 6’2”, 216 pounds, but his mock draftable chart had Sherwood in the 97th and 98th percentile for arm length and wingspan and the 89th percentile for hand size.
Sports Info Solutions said only eight linebackers had more productive seasons in 2024 per their “total points saved” metric. Sherwood was only four points lower than Fred Warner.
He had 14 tackles for loss and two sacks, but the most impressive stat from Sherwood’s season may be the 12 pressures he generated on 37 pass rushes. That tells you the Jets coaching staff was confident in his ability to rush the passer. That 31.6 percent pressure rate puts Sherwood fifth among all players with at least 10 pressures.
The market will tell the 49ers what to do with Sherwood, who is represented by Drew Rosenhaus. Spotrac projects Sherwood to make around $7.2 million annually. Some might view him as a one-year wonder, but Saleh has seen him practice daily for the past 3+ years. There won’t be any gray areas if the Niners elect to bring Sherwood in.