© Matthew Emmons | 2017 Aug 26
The offseason is here, in case you weren’t sure. As the 49ers returned home to Santa Clara and began the process of you know, returning to civilian life for a few months, the front office is entering its busiest period.
San Francisco began that by signing an athletic freak of a player, albeit one who has not remotely panned out in the NFL. According to representative Sean Stellato, the 49ers will sign former Raiders second-round pick Obi Melifonwu.
Free-agent S Obi Melifonwu, the Raiders' second-round pick in 2017, is signing with the San Francisco 49ers, per his rep @seanstellato.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 4, 2021
Since being drafted by the Raiders, his career has gone… not well. He has not played a game since 2018. After playing five games and starting just one in 2017 with the Raiders, he signed with the New England Patriots in 2018 and played in three games. He hasn’t played in an NFL game since.He was on the Patriots’ practice squad in 2019 and was released in 2020.
If you’re puzzled as to why the 49ers would sign such a seemingly inept player, don’t be. It’s a basically free swing at a player with enormous athletic upside. One metric the team uses for safeties especially speed (40 time). The other, and one they use for just about every athletic position? Broad jump.
Melifonwu tested in the 95th-plus percentile of the broad jump, vertical jump, 40-yard dash, weight and height for his position. Clearly that hasn’t translated, but it’s a similar logic to the 49ers’ pick of Tarvarius Moore in the third round: take your swings at athletic players.
I wonder why the #49ers signed him… (@dieter) https://t.co/c32aO84PD3 pic.twitter.com/qUB04gHXDJ
— Jake Hutchinson (@hutchdiesel) January 4, 2021