{"id":897216,"date":"2026-05-21T11:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T11:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/897216\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T11:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T11:06:17","slug":"49ers-news-16-more-thursdays-until-49ers-rams-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/897216\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers News: 16 more Thursdays until 49ers-Rams in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

49ers\u2019 top scout dishes on Romello Height, Kaelon Black and team\u2019s draft class (paywall)<\/a>
\u201cJohn Lynch wasn\u2019t just being descriptive when he said the 49ers had a high \u201chair on fire grade\u201d for Height, whom they took early in the third round.<\/p>\n

As Ahmad explained, hair on fire is an analytics measurement the team uses, one that examines where a defensive player is in proximity to the ball. One of the things that impressed the 49ers about Height was his motor \u2014 he was determined to be in on the play even when it was on the opposite side of the field.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe does not stop,\u201d Ahmad said. \u201cIt is incredible watching him strain. It was one of the many things that I absolutely loved about his tape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before he became the team\u2019s vice president of player personnel, Ahmad was the scout who cross-checked defensive linemen in the run-up to the draft. You could say it\u2019s his specialty. And it was clear Height was among his favorites in this year\u2019s class.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought the combine interview was awesome,\u201d he said. \u201cI fell in love with him at the combine. He\u2019s serious. I mean, you could feel how much passion he has. He comes on a 30 visit, and it\u2019s the same thing. He just loves football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why 49ers\u2019 UDFA Mikail Kamara is a popular pick to make the roster<\/a>
\u201cKamara can do himself a favor by showing positional versatility and the ability to play both inside and out. Kamara, having played for two different schools across six seasons, allowed him to play in multiple schemes where he was tasked with multiple jobs. He\u2019s played in a two and three-point stance.\u201d<\/p>\n

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She had an NFL dream. When 49ers drafted her brother, they made it a reality (paywall)<\/a>
\u201cAnd before Carver became an offensive and defensive lineman in high school, the longtime quarterback learned about in-the-trenches toughness and tenacity from Kayla, who grew up playing left guard and middle linebacker.<\/p>\n

Carver learned to study X\u2019s and O\u2019s from Kayla, who was poring over video and drawing Durango\u2019s entire playbook in a composition book as a freshman, seeking a mental edge that would help compensate for her physical disadvantage\u2026..One grade apart, they were teammates for one season at Miller Middle School, and another on\u00a0Durango High\u2019s junior varsity. And they grew up spending endless backyard hours together with Carver, a quarterback until his sophomore year, throwing passes to his sister who, he says, \u201clived and breathed football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kayla\u2019s passion and size made her goal appear less unlikely. She was 4-foot-8 in fourth grade and had sprouted to 5-4 two years later. As a seventh grader, as the only girl playing middle-school football, Kayla became one of the few members of her class to make the eighth-grade \u201cA\u201d team.<\/p>\n

Kayla started both years at middle linebacker, and Vogt termed her a \u201cstud.\u201d Carver noted, with pride, that he wasn\u2019t as studly: When he was a seventh grader, he couldn\u2019t quite replicate Kayla\u2019s feat: He swung between his own class\u2019 \u201cB\u201d team and the \u201cA\u201d squad.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo there is a key point in time,\u201d Carver said, \u201cwhen my sister was better at football than I was.\u201d \u2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very bossy and I think, growing up, I was just kind of telling Carver what to do more than influencing him,\u201d Kayla said. \u201cI never really thought, \u2018Oh, wow, I\u2019m really having an impact on Carver.\u2019 \u2026 Then on the (recruiting trips) he would introduce me to coaches: \u2018This is my sister, Kayla Willis, and she\u2019s my \u2018S.J.\u2019 I mean, someone who is going to support and believe in you. That was the first moment where I was kind of like, \u2018Wow, OK.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Kayla\u2019s devotion was reciprocated. Carver rejected a scholarship offer from a prominent Division I program whose head coach ignored Kayla when she and Carver attended a football camp at the university when Kayla was a freshman in high school. At the end of the camp, Kayla, the only girl among several hundred attendees, said she extended her hand and thanked the coach for the opportunity. She said the coach dismissed her and shook Carver\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n

Years later, when the coach called to offer a scholarship, Carver asked the coach if he recalled a girl attending the school\u2019s camp. The coach said he vaguely remembered.<\/p>\n

\u201cCarver said, \u2018That girl was my sister. And I will never play for a man like you,\u2019\u201d Kayla said.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"49ers\u2019 top scout dishes on Romello Height, Kaelon Black and team\u2019s draft class (paywall)\u201cJohn Lynch wasn\u2019t just being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":897217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,7,120629,51055,6,35795,1161,252,2624,2623],"class_list":["post-897216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco-49ers","tag-49ers","tag-football","tag-kayla-willis","tag-mikail-kamara","tag-nfl","tag-romello-height","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-sanfrancisco","tag-sanfrancisco49ers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116612247277962205","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}