Yahoo Sports fantasy analyst Matt Harmon and NFL analyst Nate Tice react to Fred Warner’s 3 year, $64 million extension with the 49ers. Hear the full conversation on “Football 301” – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
Uh, you do a lot of charting.
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I’m sure when you watch the 49ers defense, Fred Warner shows up a lot.
So speak to like kind of how that like that coverage ability and why he makes his top 10 pretty eas definitively.
I mean, he’s gonna be high up on all of our boards.
Yeah, slam dunk had to be and it certainly could have had him higher and Yeah, he just, he just like a, not, it doesn’t quite like erase the middle of the field from, from a coverage standpoint, but he makes it like a pain in the ass to try to throw over the middle for any team, like a really good center in basketball, yeah, it’s a great way of saying it just that that’s the thing it’s just the, the arm length and just the size that alone makes it a problem, but it’s also.
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I mean, instincts can kind of be like, is it instincts or is it preparation?
And like you wouldn’t really know unless you actually sat down and like had walked through every piece of film with him, but whatever it is, either instincts or preparation is elite and like rare at this position.
And again, I think it is, he’s so far and away the best softball linebacker in the NFL.
That’s a big part of it too.
But yeah, I mean, just so many teams want to attack over the middle of the field.
So many teams want to like take these shots.
So play action like overs and digs, and he’s just almost never in the wrong place.
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Like he’s, he’s, he’s not biting on play action too hard.
And if he does, like give it a, a, a second like forward jump, the recovery speed to still run down the middle and close those gaps is just unbelievable.
Like we talk about top 10 cornerbacks and like elite quarterbacks just like blocking off one side of the field, like, oh, you’re not throwing over to Revis Island.
Again, Fred Warner doesn’t quite have that level of impact, but Pretty damn close.
Pretty damn close.
It’s a peninsula.
Yeah, it’s kinda, he kind of does have that area.
I want, we’ll talk more about him, but I kind of want to wet the beak a little bit because it’s just he’s truly one of my favorite players in the league and has been, I mean, not just me, I think anyone that watches the 49ers or watches the NFL, it’s like that he’s just different.
There’s not a lot of guys like this right now that can truly do it and knock on wood, doesn’t miss a lot of time either, which is pretty astounding considering his body type and everything.