{"id":630089,"date":"2026-05-08T02:29:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T02:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/630089\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T02:29:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T02:29:27","slug":"kaelon-black-has-heard-the-criticism-ready-to-prove-49ers-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/630089\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaelon Black has heard the criticism, ready to prove 49ers right"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 49ers used the 90th overall pick on Indiana running back Kaelon Black, drawing criticism from draft analysts who labeled his third-round selection a reach.<\/p>\n<p>Both General Manager John Lynch and coach Kyle Shanahan have defended when Black was selected.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s just our evaluation of him,\u201d Shanahan said recently. \u201cRight or wrong, that\u2019s our evaluation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Black is embracing the scrutiny, using it as motivation for his rookie season. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt makes me <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.49erswebzone.com\/articles\/200663-49ers-rookie-kaelon-addresses-backlash\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">want to go harder<\/a>,\u201d Black told Chase Senior of Chat Sports, via David Bonilla of 49erswebzone.com. \u201cI\u2019ve got to prove my coach right. I\u2019d be lying if I said I haven\u2019t seen the backlash that [Shanahan] has been getting for the pick, but we just stay the course. We stay focused, and we\u2019re going to keep moving and try to prove him right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Black rushed for 251 yards for Indiana in 2024 before becoming one of the Hoosiers\u2019 two 1,000-yard backs in 2025, finishing the season with 1,040 yards and 10 touchdowns. He also caught four passes for 36 yards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 49ers used the 90th overall pick on Indiana running back Kaelon Black, drawing criticism from draft analysts&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-630089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}