The 49ers twice traded down and out of the first round last Thursday. Their first pick was wide receiver De’Zhaun Stribling with the No. 33 overall pick.
The 49ers have defended their pick of Stribling that high, and coach Kyle Shanahan said on The Rich Eisen Show on Thursday that the team accomplished what it wanted. The 49ers added two picks to their draft class, going from six to eight, and they got the player they would have drafted in the first round with the first pick of the second round.
“That’s kind of what we were hoping for,” Shanahan told Eisen, via David Bonilla of 49erswebzone.com. “Our first goal was that the guy we wanted would fall to 27, but we got our second goal, and that was to trade back twice, accumulate some more picks, and still get the guy.
“We would have taken Stribling at 30, if we had to pick, but to get to 33 and still get the guy we wanted [was ideal]. . . . I think we added eight players who all have a very good chance of making our team, and on top of that, we added a sixth-round pick for next year, which I think’s huge because we didn’t have one.”
Shanahan said the 49ers viewed the second round through the end of the third as the strongest part of the draft. However, the team went into the draft with only one pick in that range after trading its third-rounder for defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa.
“I was really concerned going into it, because I also felt we needed to add more than six players — not necessarily for this year, but also for next year,” Shanahan said. “All the stuff’s tied together on how many free agents you lose and things like that. So I was worried that if we were going to go get players that we were targeting, we were going to end up using some of our fourth-round picks to come up.”
The Cowboys have made a lot of moves to address their defense throughout the offseason, including trading for linebacker Dee Winters during last weekend’s draft.
A Texas native who played his college ball at TCU, Winters told reporters on Thursday that he was actually moving things into his new home in Arlington when he got the call that he was being traded to the Cowboys.
He added that he was definitely surprised by the trade.
“Honestly, I wasn’t expecting it at all,” Winters said, via Jon Machota of TheAthletic.com. “Everything happens for a reason. I’m excited to be back home, and I get to play for the Dallas Cowboys.”
The current expectation is that Winters will serve as Dallas’ middle linebacker, though he told reporters he’s not entirely sure what his role will be. He likes that the scheme will have him “move in open space,” calling it a perfect fit.
Winters, however, has not played in a game as the “green dot” linebacker, having the calls come into his helmet from the defensive coordinator.
“I’ve only done a few practices with the green dot,” Winters said. “That’ll be new, but there’s a first time for everything. I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”
He’s also entering the final year of his rookie contract, making his performance over the course of 2026 that much more important for his career moving forward.
“It’s very big,” Winters said. “This is where you help your family and your football career. I think this is a huge year for me. I’m excited to work in this scheme, be in space and make plays. That’s the biggest thing.”
Winters started all 17 games for the 49ers last season, recording 101 total tackles with eight tackles for loss, three QB hits, five passes defensed, and one interception.
Elijah Mitchell, a running back whose promising rookie season in 2021 now feels like a distant memory, has been cut by the Patriots.
Mitchell was only with the Patriots briefly last season and never appeared in a game for them. The team announced it was cutting him on Tuesday.
A 2021 sixth-round draft pick of the 49ers, Mitchell looked tremendous as a rookie, totaling 1,100 yards from scrimmage in 11 games.
But in Week One of his second season, Mitchell suffered a knee injury that knocked him out for most of the year, and he has struggled to stay healthy since. He missed more time in 2023, missed the entire 2024 season with a hamstring injury, and then signed with the Chiefs last year and only played in one game before he was released.
Mitchell may be able to find some team willing to give him a shot on a 90-player training camp roster, but it’s fair to question whether he’ll ever play in the regular season again, as a player who once looked like he had a bright future deals with the harsh reality of how short NFL careers can be.
Receiver Jauan Jennings may be getting closer to finding a new team.
Jennings is visiting with the Vikings on Tuesday night and Wednesday, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Jennings, 28, had spent his entire career with the 49ers, with the club having selected him in the seventh round of the 2020 draft. Jennings played 75 games with 32 starts for San Francisco, including 55 receptions for 643 yards with nine touchdowns in 2025.
The Vikings did not select a receiver in this year’s draft over the weekend, which puts them in the market for more depth at the position.
49ers General Manager John Lynch has been in his job for a decade and that means he’s made plenty of draft picks that have elicited a wide range of reactions from around the football world.
The second day of this year’s draft saw the 49ers select three players and a couple of them drew responses on the negative end of the spectrum. Lynch was asked over the weekend about the outside perception that the team reached to take wide receiver De’Zhaun Stribling with the 33rd overall pick and running back Kaelon Black at No. 90.
“It depends on whose consensus,” Lynch said, via Kevin Borba of NBCSportsBayArea.com. “We’ve got consensus in this building. That’s the consensus I care about.”
The 49ers have heard similar criticisms in the past — taking kicker Jake Moody in the third round in 2023 was a notable case — and they’ve seen a number of picks fail to pan out. Lynch has hit on enough to help the team win playoff games in five of the last seven seasons and the team’s on-field success will continue to be the ultimate test of how he’s doing in his job.
