© Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
The 49ers are looking for a staunch interior presence on the defensive line. They used to have a guy who served that role fairly well, if I recall, though his name escapes me.
Per NBC Sports’ Peter King, who looked at a number of team’s draft needs in concert with his conversations around the league, San Francisco may look to address that need with their first-round pick, which could be South Carolina’s Javon Kinlaw.
Here’s King’s assessment:
13. SAN FRANCISCO. Defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw. Another defensive lineman in the first round?!! This sounds crazy, and maybe it is, after all the first-round defensive-line capital the Niners have used up. (Consider Arik Armstead, DeForest Buckner, Solomon Thomas, Nick Bosa in the last five drafts.) But I hear the Niners are desperate for a space-eating defensive tackle who can threaten the pocket, and that’s what the 315-pound and athletic Kinlaw does.
Of course, this could be a smokescreen. The Lynch-Shanahan regime has been notoriously stingy with information (see: Mike McGlinchey) and while the 49ers do have two first-round picks, they’ll need to trade down again to cover that four-round pick gap. Could this be an intentional leak to open up trade down opportunities from No. 13?
