San Francisco Traded For A Linebacker Five Days Before The Cutdown

The 49ers acquired linebacker Deion Jones from the New Orleans Saints in exchange for running back Zamir White. The club announced it at 8:15 a.m. Tuesday, one player for one player, with the roster due at 53 on Sunday at 3:00 p.m. PT.

Katherine Terrell reported the agreement for ESPN on Sunday night. Her account has both men as long shots where they were: Jones behind an established Saints linebacker group, White behind a San Francisco backfield that was getting healthy underneath him. Five days out from a deadline that would have made both of them free, two clubs each gave up a player to be sure of getting the one they wanted rather than bidding for him on waivers.

San Francisco had not made a linebacker move all month, and this is the one. The club's own transaction log carries six entries between August 12 and Monday. Four defensive linemen signed, three released or waived with an injury designation. A cornerback in, a receiver and a punter out, two offensive linemen traded places on the same afternoon. A running back released on the 17th and signed back on the 20th. A tight end re-signed, and four days later a different tight end let go. Not a linebacker in any of it.

Fred Warner plays in the middle and Dre Greenlaw plays the weak side, and neither of those is a question. The third job is. Tim Kawakami, writing Monday for The San Francisco Standard, described what Raheem Morris wants from the position in his first year as the defensive coordinator here: linebackers who can rush the passer, play the run and drop into deep coverage. Kawakami had the likeliest men to come out of that competition as Jaden Dugger and Garret Wallow.

The two candidates behind them are both hurt. Nick Martin pulled up with a hamstring injury late in the win at the Chargers on August 20, a few plays after forcing a fumble on a kickoff return, and did not go back in. Kyle Shanahan was asked about him that night and said nothing beyond the injury itself, per Kirk Larrabee at 49ers Webzone. Jalen Graham had missed a couple of practices with an injury as of Terrell's Sunday filing. A club that goes shopping at a position five days from the cut is usually a club that expects to lose somebody at it.

What it bought is a 31-year-old with more career starts than anyone in the room except Warner. Atlanta took Jones in the second round in 2016, and the release San Francisco put out Tuesday has him at 128 games, 91 starts, 746 tackles, 50.0 tackles for loss, 13 interceptions and 12.0 sacks. His first five Atlanta seasons, 2016 through 2020, overlapped with Morris on the same staff, which NBC Sports Bay Area noted when the deal surfaced.

He is new to this building twice over. New Orleans signed him on August 8, and he is a New Orleans native who went to Jesuit High School and to LSU, where he was a Butkus Award finalist as a senior. Seventeen days later the hometown club sent him two time zones west for a running back, into a defense he has never played a snap in, with one preseason game left in which to play one.

The other half of the trade is thirteen days long. San Francisco signed White on August 12 and he carried the ball the following night against Tennessee, twice, for a yard. At the Chargers on August 20 he led every back in a San Francisco uniform with twelve carries and gained 29 yards on them, an average of 2.4. That is the whole San Francisco file: fourteen carries, thirty yards, 2.1 a carry, two games, thirteen days. He arrived with four Raiders seasons behind him, 198 carries and 736 yards of them, and none of that is what San Francisco is trading away.

He was signed into a shortage and the shortage closed. Christian McCaffrey came back to practice on Sunday after roughly two weeks away, which Kawakami read as rest taken deliberately rather than an injury nobody had named. The club's roster page on Tuesday afternoon listed five running backs on its active table, with Isaac Guerendo on Active/Physically Unable to Perform and Patrick Taylor Jr. on Reserve/Injured. That is the number San Francisco carried before White signed, and it is the number it carries now.

New Orleans has the shortage now, which is the half of this trade the San Francisco end of it does not explain. Alvin Kamara has a knee injury that Pro Football Rumors reported would hold him out roughly a month, and Devin Neal is working back from one of his own. A club that gives up a linebacker for a running back five days from the cut is not shopping. It is covering a hole that opened last week.

New Orleans had the opposite shortage. Alvin Kamara went down with a knee injury during the preseason, per NBC Sports Bay Area, which is the hole White is flying into.

What is left. The preseason finale is at Las Vegas on Thursday, the last game either roster plays before the cut, and San Francisco has to be at 53 by 3:00 p.m. PT on Sunday.

The 49ers' release says what the trade was. It does not say what it was for. It lists Jones' tackles and his interceptions and the six clubs that employed him before this one, and it gives White's height and his weight and the date he signed, and then it stops.

Called shot. Deion Jones is on San Francisco's initial 53-man roster when it is announced on August 30. Scored off the club's published initial 53 only: a practice squad signing, an injury settlement or a later addition grades this WRONG. The case against it is real and New Orleans made it two days ago, when it decided that a linebacker with 91 career starts was a long shot to make its own team. The case for it is that San Francisco gave up a player to get him with five days left, and clubs do not spend a roster spot in August to watch a man learn a defense he will not play in.

Sources: 49ers.com trade release and transaction log, August 25; 49ers.com roster page, read August 25; New Orleans Saints roster-move release, August 8; Katherine Terrell with Nick Wagoner, ESPN, August 23; NBC Sports Bay Area, August 23; Tim Kawakami, The San Francisco Standard, August 24; Kirk Larrabee, 49ers Webzone, August 20; ESPN box scores of the August 13 and August 20 games.