{"id":346194,"date":"2026-06-04T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T08:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/346194\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T08:00:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T08:00:40","slug":"49ers-rookie-earns-impressive-whole-package-praise-from-coach-nbc-sports-bay-area-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/346194\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers rookie earns impressive whole package praise from coach \u2013 NBC Sports Bay Area &#038; California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 49ers selected <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/romello-height-1.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Romello Height<\/a> in the third round of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/draft\/rounds\/_\/round\/3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2026 NFL Draft<\/a>, and it hasn\u2019t taken long for the 25-year-old to impress San Francisco defensive line coach Kris Kocurek.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust the speed, athleticism, his explosion on get-off, and then, just natural pass rush ability,\u201d Kocurek told reporters Tuesday in Santa Clara. \u201cIt\u2019s been really impressive so far. We\u2019re not in pads or anything yet, so that\u2019ll be the determining factor for the whole thing, but just the way he moves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Height, who finished his collegiate career at Texas Tech, had 10 tackles for loss and nine sacks his senior season as a Red Raider. That type of pressure is exactly what Kocurek says the 49ers will need out of the rookie defensive end.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the end of the day, we drafted him to rush the passer, and he\u2019s really excelled at that,\u201d Kocurek said. \u201cHis get-off has been really, really good, being able to put tackles behind the eight ball with his get-off and making them set differently and protect differently and getting on them quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In addition to what Kocurek has seen from Height, he also believes the energy he brings has been refreshing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust the work ethic that he brings in,\u201d Kocurek said. \u201cHe works really, really hard. The energy that he plays with. Just the whole package. Excited about him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 49ers finished the 2025 NFL season with just 20 sacks, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/stats\/team\/_\/view\/defense\/stat\/passing\/table\/passing\/sort\/sacks\/dir\/asc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the fewest in the league<\/a>, and the addition of Height \u2013 as well as Nick Bosa\u2019s expected return \u2013 definitely could help that number increase.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/49ers-talk-with-matt-maiocco.simplecast.com\/episodes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Download and follow the 49ers Talk Podcast<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 49ers selected Romello Height in the third round of the 2026 NFL Draft, and it hasn\u2019t taken&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1818,141996,122155,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-346194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-49ers","tag-kris-kocurek","tag-romello-height","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}