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DeForest Buckner wanted a trade to 49ers after Colts' rough start to NFL season
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- DeForest Buckner wanted a trade to 49ers after Colts' rough start to NFL season
DeForest Buckner wanted a trade to 49ers after Colts' rough start to NFL season originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
DeForest Buckner wanted to return to the 49ers.
Last week, San Francisco traded a 2027 fourth-round draft pick for the Indianapolis Colts' defensive tackle , whom they drafted No. 7 overall in the 2016 NFL Draft, and it appears the feeling was mutual.
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On Monday, Buckner clarified that San Francisco was his preferred destination when trade rumors started to swirl.
"When you start thinking about trade[s], things going on and everything like that, and the way things were going, and just the way I was feeling inside, it was a tough decision, but when everything unfolded and everything, I stated that I wanted to come here," Buckner said. "I didn't want to go anywhere else. Obviously, the familiarity with being here, being drafted here, all the guys that are still here when I was here.
"Just watching them, I've been keeping up with the games over the years, and just watching the standard of play that they play at, and the winning football they play, this is where I wanted to be."
Buckner's career year remains the 2018 season with the 49ers, when he put up 12 sacks and 17 tackles for loss and was part of the 2019 team that reached the Super Bowl.
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In his seven seasons since getting traded to the Colts, Buckner earned two Pro Bowl Selections and was named First-Team All-Pro in 2020.
At 2-6, Indianapolis seems to have gone into a rebuild with the trades of Buckner and All-Pro guard Quenton Nelson to the Seattle Seahawks, but Buckner's time away from San Francisco has not affected his connection with the 49ers.
Buckner mentioned that he has kept in touch with his former teammates throughout his time as a Colt, and he explained how they developed a close relationship during his time in San Francisco.
"Since I've been gone, I've been keeping in contact with a bunch of my guys, with [Kyle Juszczyk], George [Kittle], Fred [Warner], with Nick [Bosa] and Dre [Greenlaw] here and there, Deebo [Samuel]," Buckner said. "So just keeping in contact over the past six years or even passing by like when we're at the Pro Bowl and meeting up with them and things like that.
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"It's a bond that's never been broken. When you invest a lot into your teammates, and you guys do so many things over those four years that I was here, especially that last year I was here and what we was able to do and the bonds that we formed, that's forever a brotherhood. So just being able to keep in touch with them, that's what made the decision so easy to come back, and, over the years they'd be like, 'Come back home, bro. Come back home.' … lo and behold, I'm here."
The 49ers hope Buckner's homecoming and Bosa's return will be enough to shore up a mediocre pass rush after the Week 8 bye.
