49ers Draft Crush: After losing Dre Greenlaw, the 49ers defense needs a dose of feistiness

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They’re not booing.

They’re yelling, “Pooooh!!”

That’s my vision for this year’s Draft Crush, Ole Miss linebacker Chris Paul Jr., better known to teammates and college football fans by his family nickname, Pooh.

No, the San Francisco 49ers won’t take Paul with their first-round pick and probably won’t with their second rounder, either. Those two selections likely will go toward rebuilding the trenches. But at some point – perhaps with one of their two, third-round picks – the 49ers ought to be eyeing Paul.

If the 2024 season taught us anything, it was that having a high-quality weakside linebacker is critical for San Francisco’s defense.

No one was able to fill injured Dre Greenlaw’s shoes, not even close. Veteran De’Vondre Campbell was too slow. Youngster Dee Winters was too inconsistent. The only one who shined in the role was Greenlaw himself – for 30 snaps in Week 15 when he briefly returned from his Achilles injury and looked like the Tasmanian Devil in tallying eight first-half tackles.

Though Greenlaw’s value was triple underscored that evening, the 49ers — strangely — didn’t rush to re-sign him when the season ended. They took a wait-and-see approach to his pending free agency and only kicked into action when he agreed to terms with the Denver Broncos on a multi-year deal. At that point, Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch hopped on a plane to Texas in a last-ditch effort to reel Greenlaw back in.

They couldn’t, and now they’re facing a second straight Greenlaw-less season.

The best way to remedy that: Land someone who’s been getting Greenlaw comparisons for the past four years. Paul’s first stop in college was Arkansas, which is also where Greenlaw played.

“Dre Greenlaw, actually, is someone I get compared to a lot,” Paul said at the scouting combine. “We have similar body frames, we both play the game the same way — very passionate, very physical. He’s someone I’ve watched since he’s been with the 49ers. I even watched him a little bit as I started my career at Arkansas.”

The passion Paul cited is what makes Greenlaw special, what his teammates felt when he was on the field and what was palpably absent last season. Watch a few Ole Miss games and you’ll see a similar ferocity in Paul, who’s not shy about scrapping with guards and who flies around the field making tackles.

“Old-school player,” Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin said of Paul last year. “I love the way he practices and how much he cares. I remember we had a short field (against) LSU and held them to a field goal, and he’s yelling, ‘That was not good enough’ and that they shouldn’t have scored at all. Unfortunately that’s rare nowadays.”

How else is Paul rose-worthy? Let’s answer some questions:

Can he tackle? You bet. He led Ole Miss with 88 tackles last season and only had four missed tackles, according to Pro Football Focus. By comparison, Alabama’s Jihaad Campbell, who could be the first stack linebacker drafted, had seven missed tackles. Another SEC linebacker, South Carolina’s Demetrius Knight, had 10.

How is he against the pass? Good. Paul’s strength is that he moves well, including dropping to spots in zone coverage and running with tight ends in man coverage. He allowed one touchdown last season and his opponents’ passer rating when targeting him was 93.2. Greenlaw’s opponents’ rating in the NFL is 92.2.

Paul also is a strong blitzer with 3 1/2 sacks and 24 quarterback pressures last season. To put that in perspective, Georgia’s Mykel Williams, who might be the second defensive end drafted, had 26 pressures in 2024.

Is he a student of the game? Very much so. One of the things that distinguishes Greenlaw is the amount of film he watches. Paul is the same way. It’s the reason he plays faster than he actually runs (see below).

Is he tough? The guy has six older sisters. Six. He’s gotta be tough. His father also is a Navy veteran and raised his kids with military discipline. Grit and determination are traits that stood out to The Athletic’s Dane Brugler, who writes in “The Beast” that Paul “always had the dirtiest jersey on each tape studied.”

So, yes, he passes the toughness test. If you’re going to replace Greenlaw, you have to.

Opposition report

Is Paul the perfect prospect? No, there are flaws – including a big one – which is why he might be available in the third round or early on Day 3. Brugler, for instance, lists him as a 3rd-to-4th round pick.

• Size-wise, he’s not exactly The Incredible Hulk. He’s more Deadpool (Deadpooh?). At the combine, Paul weighed 222 pounds with arms just shy of 30 inches and a wingspan (76 1/4 inches) that was the smallest of any of the top linebackers.

That lack of length didn’t hurt his tackling, but it’s a concern as far as taking on blockers. If Paul encountered a 245-pound tight end at the goal line, could he keep his opponent out of the end zone the way Greenlaw famously did in Seattle in 2019?

• His 4.63-second 40 time at the combine was fine, but you might expect a smaller-sized linebacker to clock a better time. Of course, Greenlaw’s 40 time back in 2019 was even less impressive: 4.73 seconds.

• Every now and then he can be a little too similar to Greenlaw, whose aggressiveness drew plenty of 15-yard penalties during his San Francisco tenure. Paul also has a tendency to play on the edge and picked up a pair of roughing-the-passer penalties, a horsecollar tackle and a late hit out of bounds last season alone.

As noted above, he’s also no stranger to post-play dustups, including with players who outweigh him by 100 pounds. He might be the lightest guy in the front seven, but like Greenlaw he has no qualms about being the enforcer. Quipped one scout: “Someone forgot to tell Pooh how big he is.”

The Contenders

Here are three other third- or fourth-round Draft Crushes at the 49ers’ other positions of need:

DT C.J. West, Indiana. At 6-1, 316 pounds, West isn’t going to win any best-body awards. But he’s slippery for his size and was almost impossible to block one on one at the East-West Shrine game. He’s a strong run defender who could join the 49ers’ rotation along the defensive line.

DE Bradyn Swinson, LSU. Swinson was productive – 8 1/2 sacks, 13 tackles for loss – in the SEC last year. He’d have to get accustomed to rushing from a three-point stance with the 49ers, but his combination of burst and long stride gets him into the backfield quickly. Swinson also uses his hands as well as any edge rusher in the draft.

OT Charles Grant, William & Mary. Grant’s college competition – including Stony Brook, Hampton and Bryant – might make for a challenging transition to the NFL. But he’s got the size and the quick feet the 49ers are looking for at the position, and he played in a zone-rushing offense in college. In a draft in which short arms are a concern for a lot of the top tackles (and one prominent linebacker), Grant’s are an asset and measure nearly 35 inches.

History lesson

This is only my second Draft Crush linebacker since I started this in 2008. In 2016, I gave the Bar-rose to UCLA’s Myles Jack while the 49ers ended up taking Oregon’s DeForest Buckner.

Well played, Trent Baalke. Well played.

(Photo: Stephen Lew / Imagn Images)

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