5 former players 49ers wish they had back for upcoming 2022 season

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Aldon Smith #99 of the San Francisco 49ers (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images) /

No. 2 player 49ers would love to have back: EDGE Aldon Smith

We’ve got to go back a way for the No. 2 player on this list the 49ers would love to have back, so long as he was playing at his peak.

EDGE Aldon Smith‘s tenure with the Niners involved just as much controversy and off-field drama as it did exciting production, and his absence from football amid legal trouble and alcohol addiction created far more concern about his own well-being than anything else.

Good for him he apparently put that chapter behind him and was able to make it back into the NFL, although he was never the same player he was when he threatened the single-season sack record back in 2012 with 19.5 sacks.

However, assuming San Francisco had a time machine and could also rectify Smith’s red flags, getting that kind of defensive output and lining it up opposite Pro Bowl EDGE Nick Bosa would be downright nasty and terrifying for opposing quarterbacks.

Reflecting back on the previous slide’s mentioning of the 49ers’ defensive line being elite, well, a Smith-Bosa tandem would propel this group to No. 1 in terms of the fear factor.