While cornerback was arguably the 49ers’ weakest position heading into the offseason, safety might be one of their strongest. Jaquiski Tartt was ranked as one of the top safeties in the league last year according to Pro Football Focus, before suffering a broken arm that ended his season in Week 9. Rookie Adrian Colbert also had an impressive season in six starts filling in for Tartt, with a hard-hitting mentality that had to make his general manager smile.
And then there’s Jimmie Ward, a first-round pick in 2014 who both John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan seem to be high on, and who was the 49ers’ first choice to start at single high free safety last year, but who was relegated to just six games due to injury. With all three young talents returning for next season, it remains unclear who the favorites are to start, and whether or not the 49ers would prefer to play Ward, a positional hybrid, at cornerback.
Lynch indicated just that when he spoke to reporters Monday morning at the NFL owners meetings.
“Jimmie Ward is a guy who’s played some outside corner in his career,” Lynch told Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area. “We’re going to experiment with that this offseason and see if that’s viable and give him some time there.
“He’s got to continue to develop. Unfortunately for him, right when he started to get on the field (last season), he was injured with a calf strain. We feel guys like that are going to have to emerge and step up.”
While Ward played almost exclusively free safety, he was used as a nickel cornerback during his first three seasons with the 49ers. K’Waun Williams is currently penciled in as the team’s primary nickel cornerback, with Richard Sherman and Ahkello Witherspoon both likely to start on the outside.
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Lynch also gave an update on Reuben Foster, who following his arrest in early February on domestic violence, threats, and assault weapons charges, is still awaiting a decision from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office on whether they will pursue criminal charges.
Foster is likely to be suspended by the league regardless as this is his fourth off the field incident in two years, but Lynch seemed content with Foster’s status as the 49ers’ offseason program (April 16) approaches.
“We’re operating on their time line,” Lynch told Maiocco. “There are dates, but we’re operating on that time line and monitoring it. We’ve been in close contact with him. He’s doing a nice job.”