49ers Talk: What De'Zhaun Stribling brings as team's top 2026 NFL Draft pick
On "49ers Talk," Jennifer Lee Chan and Matt Maiocco discuss their initial impressions of San Francisco's newly drafted receiver De'Zhaun Stribling.
49ers Talk: What De'Zhaun Stribling brings as team's top 2026 NFL Draft pick originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Video Transcript
The first pick that they had in this draft, which they traded back twice in the first round, they end up with number thirty-three, and they get Dejean Stribling, and he just looks like a 49ers player, doesn't he?
Right.
We met him today for the first time, and he looked at his jersey with his name on it, and just, you could tell he was very excited to be in the Bay Area for the 49ers.
Talked about how growing up in Hawaii, playing all those big Samoan kids, it helped him level up his toughness, you know, his ability to block on the field, and he really is the prototype of what the 49ers look for in a wide receiver.
A guy who's physical, gets, you know, his nose into, in the business down on the field, and then really good with his hands, very athletic, and fast.
Yards after the catch.
Yes.
You know, it used to be the 49ers had the Yak Bros, right?
Mm-hmm.
The yards after the catch with all those guys, Deebo, and, and Brandon Aiyuk were kind of the, the, forefathers of that.
Leaders of the, that movement, yes.
Yeah, and, and that disappeared last year.
It did.
And it just explosive plays across the board disappeared- Mm-hmm for the 49ers, both in the run game and the passing game, and Stribling is a guy that, you know, he doesn't go down on first contact.
Right.
And he, he makes defensive backs work for it.
And the last two years, you know, this is kind of a well-traveled guy.
A lot of the guys the 49ers took in this draft were well-traveled, but he started off at Washington State.
He went to Oklahoma State, and his last year at Oklahoma State, and his one and only year at Ole Miss pretty much had identical numbers.
You know- Mm-hmm two different systems.
fifty-two catches one year, fifty-five catches the next, eight hundred and eighty-two yards receiving one year, eight hundred and eleven the next, and then six touchdowns in back-to-back seasons.
So I really think that Stribling has a chance to get on the field early and often in his rookie season.
And we know how tough Kyle Shanahan can be on wide receivers when they first join the 49ers.
The thing that Stribling has underneath his belt is that Lane Kiffin's offense at Ole Miss is almost exactly the same as what the 49ers run, so Stribling is going to be able to assimilate very quickly.
He understands the concepts.
He understands where he needs to add in at, in the run game, and that's what Kyle Shanahan will need in the offense.
And because of the lack of wide receiver play last year, that's why you didn't get the explosive plays, and I would expect it to go up as long as everybody in that wide receivers room stays healthy.
And, you know, the, the 49ers made a point, you know, after the draft to say that they expect some of these guys to be starters.
Mm-hmm.
But they also expect even more of those guys to be starters a year from now after the twenty twenty-seven free agent process kind of winds through.
And I think Stribling i- is a guy that could fit either of those.
I mean, I, I could see him getting on the field a lot.
you know, with Mike Evans on the team, with, with Ricky Pearsall, you know, could Stribl- Stribling be the number three guy?
Could he possibly be the number two guy?
But then a year from now, that's when you think that he'll really have an opportunity with a year under his belt, learning the intricacies of the system, he can really take off.
