49ers draft pick makes clear one high-profile free agent won't return

If it wasn't already clear how the San Francisco 49ers felt about free agent wide receiver Jauan Jennings, they provided more evidence during the draft that Jennings's tenure in the Bay Area is over.

General manager John Lynch didn't mince words when asked about Jennings at the NFL owners meetings, and then hammered that point home with San Francisco's first draft pick.

"He’ll find a good home, and Jauan will go play great football for someone," Lynch said. "I can’t say enough for what that guy did; when that guy stepped between the lines, man, he was a presence, and they had to deal with him, and he won us a lot of games."

If that wasn't confirmation enough, the 49ers then traded back twice in the first round of the NFL draft to land at No. 33 where they took Ole Miss wide receiver De'Zhaun Stribling.

While Stribling isn't the exact same player as Jennings — he's a touch smaller, but significantly faster — he brings the tenacity and play style that made Jennings uniquely valuable to San Francisco. Injuries in 2024 and 2025 thrust Jennings into a larger role as a pass catcher, but his primary value to the 49ers was his ability to run block and the different ways head coach Kyle Shanahan could move Jennings around the formation because of it.

Stribling has the skill set to get involved in the run game in similar ways, which effectively eliminated the 49ers' need to have a player like Jennings on their roster.

This isn't to say Stribling will be as productive as Jennings was out of the gate. Jennings caught 55 balls for 643 yards and nine touchdowns last season. However, he should be able to immediately take on the blocking third WR role that Jennings occupied.

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