LATEST April 24, 6:45 p.m. The 49ers selected Georgia defensive lineman Mykel Williams with the No. 11 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Here’s what columnist Eric Ting said about the possibility of selecting Williams before the draft and why it’d be a huge risk for the Niners. — SFGATE sports editor Alex Simon
April 23, 1 p.m. The San Francisco 49ers believe they have the Jesus of defensive line coaching.
Since joining the team in 2019, defensive line coach Kris Kocurek has worked a great many miracles. He saved Arik Armstead from being remembered as another Trent Baalke failure. He coaxed an 8.5-sack season out of journeyman Kerry Hyder. He resuscitated the career of Arden Key, who was headed for the densely populated graveyard of the Raiders’ draft busts.
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The team worked hard to keep Kocurek around in the 2023 offseason — staving off interest from the Houston Texans to stay — because of his ability to turn water into wine. In some cases, he’s even been able to turn sewage water into a drinkable cocktail.
But Kocurek is not Jesus, and hasn’t been able to save everybody. I write this because there’s a common thread that connects the two most high-profile instances where he failed — Javon Kinlaw and Drake Jackson — as well as some of the options in the 2025 NFL draft. In short, those players were freakish athletes in serious need of technical refinement and were selected with the belief that Kocurek could coach them up. Neither panned out, and there are signs the team may be about to make the same mistake again.
San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa runs a drill as defensive coordinator Steve Wilks, left, and defensive line coach Kris Kocurek, right, look on during practice at the team’s NFL training facility in Santa Clara, Calif., on Feb. 1, 2024.
Tony Avelar/AP
Kocurek is a great defensive line coach, but even he can’t save every defensive lineman who falls into the “tantalizing athletic gifts but limited collegiate production driven by a lack of technique” archetype. Travon Walker, Tyree Wilson and Payton Turner are recent examples from other NFL teams of athletic but unrefined first-round picks who have not lived up to their draft status.
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The 49ers badly need to walk away with multiple starters out of this draft class after an ownership-induced spending crunch. If San Francisco wishes to contend in the NFC in 2025, the team must avoid project-type defensive linemen at pick No. 11, similar to how Jake Moody’s field goal attempts avoid the uprights.
It’s no secret the 49ers need defensive linemen: The current projected starting four are Nick Bosa, Yetur Gross-Matos, the Rizzler and Nick Bosa’s cardboard cutout of Donald Trump. The team has brought in many D-linemen to Santa Clara for official top-30 visits, but the three names who could be in play in the first round — Texas A&M’s Shemar Stewart, Georgia’s Mykel Williams and Ole Miss’s Walter Nolen — have echoes of Javon Kinlaw and Drake Jackson.
The Kinlaw pick was boneheaded at the time for various reasons, but the 49ers just loved his athleticism and the idea that Kocurek could harness his traits and turn him into a force inside. Even at the end of a quiet rookie season, general manager John Lynch said that Kinlaw, while “not there yet,” has “shown flashes” and that “we’re very excited about Javon.” Lynch added that Kinlaw “works with an excellent coach in Kris Kocurek.”
San Francisco 49ers player Javon Kinlaw, center, performs a drill with defensive line coach Kris Kocurek, right, during NFL practice in Santa Clara, Calif., on Sept. 2, 2020.
Jeff Chiu/AP
But that never happened in four years. After Kinlaw left the team to sign with the Jets in 2024, his most memorable moment as a 49er probably was a livestream appearance in which he repeatedly insisted to beat reporter Grant Cohn that “my nuts is bigger than yours.”
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The Drake Jackson pick, while less boneheaded at the time (though it was the team’s first selection in the 2022 NFL draft), involved similar reasoning: that Kocurek could refine a raw but talented player with limited collegiate production. Jackson did hardly anything in 2022 and 2023 before suffering a knee injury he still has not fully recovered from, and he is entering the final year of his rookie deal.
Drafting unrefined but athletic defensive linemen is always a gamble, and it’s an even bigger gamble when doing so early in the draft. The 49ers are extremely short-handed at defensive line right now, in large part because Kinlaw (first round in 2020) and Jackson (second round in 2022) flamed out so spectacularly. Which brings us to the 2025 NFL draft class.
Penn State defensive end Abdul Carter celebrates a tackle against Kent State during the first quarter of an NCAA game in State College, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 21, 2024.
Barry Reeger/AP
Most draft experts agree that the top two defensive linemen — Penn State edge rusher Abdul Carter and Michigan defensive tackle Mason Graham — will be long gone by the time the 49ers are on the clock at pick No. 11, and the cost to trade up to get them probably isn’t worth it. The next best edge rusher after Carter, Georgia’s Jalon Walker, is often mocked to the Carolina Panthers at No. 8 and seems likely to be out of reach as well. That leaves a “best of the rest” group at defensive line that includes the three names the 49ers brought in: Shemar Stewart, Mykel Williams and Walter Nolen.
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Stewart is one of the most polarizing draft picks in the draft: He’s never had more than 1.5 sacks in a season, and his run game productivity is bad too. How then, is he in the first-round conversation? He had a stellar performance at the scouting combine, and evaluators drool over what he can be “if he figures it out.” Maybe he will figure it out. But past prospects like him have not, even when they’ve had Kris Kocurek coaching them.
Williams and Nolen are largely the same story as Stewart: The idea of what they can be is what has them in the first-round conversation. Williams was a top prospect prior to his last year at Georgia, but he then had a quiet five-sack season. Nolen, meanwhile, is largely Javon Kinlaw with better knees. His NFL.com scouting report is almost identical to Kinlaw’s.
Multiple NFL teams have also reportedly expressed “maturity concerns” about Nolen, so maybe one day we’ll see him telling Grant Cohn that his testicles are small.
San Francisco 49ers defensive line coach Kris Kocurek on the sideline during an NFL football game against the Chicago Bears in Santa Clara, Calif., on Dec. 8, 2024.
Scot Tucker/AP
Perhaps the 49ers have learned from their past defensive line draft mistakes. Lynch told reporters Tuesday, “You always struggle when you project too much” and “sometimes, the [college] production doesn’t lie.” In terms of possible defensive line picks in the first round, that could mean Oregon’s Derrick Harmon, who led all FBS defensive tackles in pressures last season.
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The 49ers could also forgo the position in round one to address a different need. Trent Williams is turning 37 this year, and Colton McKivitz is still not very good, so how about Texas offensive tackle Kelvin Banks? Even though some draft analysts think he may have to play guard, the 49ers have a need at left guard after Aaron Banks’ departure. Cornerback Charvarius Ward has also departed, so how about drafting one of Michigan’s Will Johnson or Texas’ Jahdae Barron at No. 11?
If any of those proposed picks don’t work out, at least the team will have made a different mistake. We know from recent 49ers history that there are some toolsy defensive linemen that not even Kris Kocurek can save. San Francisco should not tempt fate a third time.
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