The 49ers could bring a key defensive starter back in free agency in 2025.
After the first day of the 2025 NFL Combine, it’s clear that the San Francisco 49ers will be searching for options at defensive line, with defensive ends and defensive tackles being positions of interest with interviews.
The 49ers have seen an overhaul of their defensive tackle position over the last two offseasons, releasing Arik Armstead with a post-June 1st release last offseason before moving on from Javon Hargrave with the same procedure last month.
When general manager John Lynch announced the move last month, he mentioned the possibility of bringing back Hargrave as a free agent if the market materialized that way.
Speaking at the combine, Lynch addressed the topic, acknowledging that the team has had talks with the defensive tackle ahead of free agency.
“[Bringing back Javon Hargrave] is [still a possibility], but I would tell you I think that the D-tackle market’s going to be [robust],” Lynch said on Wednesday. “I mean, those guys, it’s a premium position, and they typically do well. And even Javon, who’s coming off the tricep, I think he’s well on his way to being healthy, and I think it’d be a robust market, but we’ll see.
“And we’ve had good discussions with Javon. You know, when we kind of talked about the transaction we were going to make, that, ‘yeah, we’d be interested in a scenario where he comes back and, and hopefully we can be involved in that.’”
With the expectation that the defensive tackle market will likely be too expensive for the 49ers in free agency, it’s sensible that the team will look to the draft at the position.
That aligns with Lynch’s desire for the team to get younger as a whole, which the general manager mentioned as a priority this offseason.
The 49ers have been involved with a number of defensive tackles during the pre-draft process, most notably holding a formal interview with Ole Miss star Walter Nolen at the Combine.
In addition, San Francisco has held formal interviews with defensive tackles C.J. West and Shemar Turner of Indiana and Texas A&M, respectively, who are projected to go in the middle rounds of the 2025 NFL Draft.
Defensive end seems to be a position of interest as well, as the 49ers held formal interviews with Tennessee’s James Pearce and Texas A&M’s Nic Scourton, who could be targets for the team in the first round.
Nonetheless, the 49ers need to hit on their defensive linemen in this draft after missing on the position over the last few years.
San Francisco has surprisingly shied away from the position in each of the last two drafts, addressing other needs instead. Before that, the last three defensive linemen the team drafted was 2022 second-rounder Drake Jackson, 2022 sixth-rounder Kalia Davis, and 2020 first-rounder Javon Kinlaw.
All three players haven’t panned out for the 49ers, leading to a lack of young talent at the position to complement star Nick Bosa.
That needs to change in the 2025 NFL Draft, and the 49ers seem to be doing their due diligence to find their next core defensive linemen for years to come.