Mississippi wide receiver De’Zhaun Stribling celebrates after scoring against Tulane in the second half of a College Football Playoff first-round game on Dec. 20 in Oxford, Miss.
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Mississippi wide receiver De’Zhaun Stribling got off to a slow start last season but picked it up late, with 44 catches for 665 yards and five touchdowns in his final 10 games.
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Mississippi wide receiver De’Zhaun Stribling had 10 catches for 218 yards and a touchdown in two games against SEC rival Georgia last season, one in the College Football Playoff.
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Did the San Francisco 49ers reach Friday when they drafted De’Zhaun Stribling at No. 33 overall? Maybe it was a mini-reach? Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean they missed on their polarizing pick.
That was the assessment of an NFL general manager when asked about the Mississippi wide receiver whose selection with the first pick of the second round was a shocker to much of the Faithful. The GM termed Stribling, who has an impressive size-speed combo, a “really good player” and said his team was wowed by his intangibles: “Awesome kid. Smart, tough — what you want,” he said, via text.
The GM did say the 49ers probably could have made another trade and still selected Stribling after their two first-round deals Thursday moved them down six spots to No. 33. But Stribling would likely have been off the board if the 49ers had waited until pick No. 58, a second-rounder they eventually traded.
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Staying put to ensure they landed a prospect they coveted who, in the GM’s estimation, was likely to be drafted about 10 picks later? Not a big deal.
“He was likely to go sometime in the second round,” he said. “My guess would have been in the mid-40s. So maybe they could have traded back a few spots and still got him. But (it’s) unlikely he would have lasted until their original second-round pick. So if he was their guy, I don’t think it was too high.”
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The 49ers had a higher grade on Stribling than those in the draft analyst world, which explains the raised eyebrows and spiked blood pressures: The first pick of the second round on a prospect Joe Fan had never seen in any of the endless first-round mock drafts?
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General manager John Lynch said Saturday on NFL Network that the 49ers didn’t wait to take Stribling because they sensed a “groundswell” of interest late in the pre-draft process.
Lynch’s comment raises an interesting subject. There aren’t often late-rising surprises in the NFL scouting community given the exhaustive work that’s done on prospects well in advance of the first round. That is, teams aren’t often uncovering information in April on a top-100 target such as Stribling that wasn’t available after the combine in late February.
Still, there are signs that Stribling was an aberration. Three teams requested to host him on a visit about a week before the draft, which is unusual timing, and Stribling couldn’t accommodate them, said his agent, Steve Caric. Stribling visited eight teams between March 26 and April 15: the Rams, Eagles, Buccaneers, Vikings, Bears, Patriots, Texans and Saints.
NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah, a plugged-in former NFL scout, said nine days before the first round that Stribling and Georgia State’s Ted Hurst (third round) were the wideouts gaining the most late momentum, based on his talks with league evaluators. Jeremiah later said on “The Pat McAfee Show” that he’d viewed Stribling as a third-rounder but “now I’m beginning to think he doesn’t get out of the second round.”
A reason Stribling had skeptics: He wasn’t Ole Miss’ most productive wide receiver in 2025, when he had 55 catches for 811 yards and six touchdowns. His teammate Wallace Harrison, who went undrafted last week before he signed with the Cardinals, had 57 catches for 894 yards and four scores.
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Stribling ranked 116th among FBS players in receiving yards per game (54.1) and 154th in catches (3.67). However, the 49ers believed Stribling’s modest production was misleading. After he transferred to Mississippi from Oklahoma State for his final season, they thought he was underutilized early in the season.
In his first five games, Stribling had 15 catches for 146 yards and one score. In his final 10 games, he had 44 catches for 665 yards and five touchdowns. His closing stretch featured 10 catches for 218 yards and a touchdown in two games against 12-2 Georgia that included a win in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals.
“He was kind of a unique guy that when he transferred in, I’m not certain if Ole Miss knew the quality and the caliber of person and player that they had early on,” said 49ers vice president of player personnel Tariq Ahmad. “Our scouts loved him right away. Our coach loved him right away.”
Caric said Stribling was projected to be selected between late in the second round to early in the fourth round in January. But he moved up boards by answering questions about his speed and route-running ability while wowing teams with his intangibles during his pre-draft visits, the first of which came 28 days before the first round. Jeremiah said Stribling’s meetings went “exceptionally well.”
The 49ers made Stribling one of 16 prospects who received a “gold-helmet” designation, which reflects qualities such as leadership, unselfishness, toughness and work ethic. The 49ers saw those traits displayed in his ferocious run blocking — they viewed him as the draft’s best run-blocking wideout — and that his body language gave no sign that he was pouting last season when he averaged 29.2 receiving yards in his first five games.
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“All the factors that make you a gold helmet, they have to show up on tape,” said director of scouting Josh Williams. “And they do for him.”
Stribling, at 6-foot-2 and 207 pounds, ran a 4.36-second 40-yard dash at the combine that was the eighth fastest among wideouts. The average weight of the seven who ran faster than Stribling: 186.7 pounds. Of the five wideouts selected in the first round, three were lighter than Stribling and ran slower 40s, while two others didn’t run a 40 before the draft.
Caric said NFL teams had questions about Stribling’s route-running after many of his catches in 2025 came on screens, short hitches and slants. Caric pointed to Stribling’s more expansive route tree at Oklahoma State in 2024, when he had 52 catches for 822 yards and six touchdowns in 12 games.
But he said Stribling didn’t officially allay concerns until he ran a full route tree at Mississippi’s pro day on March 18, about five weeks before the draft. Stribling’s performance made an NFL assistant GM a believer, according to Caric.
“He said to me, ‘Bro, I’ve seen enough,’” Caric said. “‘This guy’s a baller. I’m going to get an early flight.’”
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If such buzz got back to the 49ers, it helps explain why they rebuffed a host of trade offers for the No. 33 pick before they selected Stribling late Friday afternoon. If some view it as a mini-reach, well, the 49ers have zero initial regrets.
“There were a lot of calls for 33 because it is a coveted pick,” Lynch said. “But, at the end of the day, our entire building had conviction. And there’s a lot to love about the kid. … We love the total package.”