{"id":555403,"date":"2026-03-21T18:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/555403\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T18:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:00:11","slug":"this-unit-has-to-get-younger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/555403\/","title":{"rendered":"This Unit Has to Get Younger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that the San Francisco 49ers are nearly two weeks into free agency<\/a>, they do not have many more moves to make before the 2026 NFL draft. So, what does their receiver room look like right now, and will they still draft at the position?<\/p>\n

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver depth chartMike Evans\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 49ers essentially have Evans on a one-year deal<\/a> with a team option to bring him back for next season. At his age and injury status, it will be interesting to see how he looks on a new team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ricky Pearsall<\/p>\n

Pearsall is much younger than Evans but arguably brings more injury questions. When healthy, this is a dynamic duo.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"San<\/p>\n

Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Christian Kirk\u00a0<\/p>\n

When healthy is doing a lot of work for the receiver room, but Kirk is an excellent slot between these two when healthy. The issue is that he has missed 13 games in the past two seasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Demarcus Robinson\u00a0<\/p>\n

Robinson has been relatively healthy, but even with the wide receiver room in such a state of flux last season, the team could not find ways to get production out of Robinson. At age 31, he may be on the wrong side of his career and on the way down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jordan Watkins<\/p>\n

Watkins hardly got on the field last year, and now the 49ers have added two new names in front of him. Unless he can get involved on special teams, he is staring at being a healthy inactive<\/a> most weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"San<\/p>\n

D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Jacob Cowing<\/p>\n

Cowing is sixth amongst receivers, but he brings a return game ability that Watkins does not, so he could end up active on gamedays if he makes the roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Junior Bergen\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bergen was drafted to be a return threat, but did not show it in his rookie season. Now, he is essentially just insurance for Bergen.<\/p>\n

Malik Turner<\/p>\n

Turner has been in the NFL since 2018 and with the 49ers since 2024, but he is more likely to stay on the practice squad than make noise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Colton Dowell<\/p>\n

The 49ers gave Dowell a futures contract this offseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What will the San Francisco 49ers do at wide receiver?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 49ers are in a weird spot where they have three listed starters and six receivers with a legitimate case to make an NFL roster, but they still need a wide receiver. Evans and Robinson are over the age of 30, and Kirk is pushing 30 with injury issues. When you add in that their youngest wideout has injury questions as well, they need to find a way to get younger and more active at wide receiver.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, a draft pick could push someone like Watkins or Robinson out of the picture entirely. It will be interesting to see when and how they address this. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now that the San Francisco 49ers are nearly two weeks into free agency, they do not have many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-555403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}