49ers roster: These 4 NFL Draft picks are already in danger of being cut
By Peter Panacy
49ers rookie No. 3: Defensive tackle Kalia Davis
Niners fans may have cringed a bit when general manager John Lynch followed a page out of former GM Trent Baalke’s playbook, grabbing an injured collegiate prospect in former UCF defensive tackle Kalia Davis, who suffered a torn ACL his final year before going pro.
The idea of redshirting injured players hasn’t worked out for San Francisco even in the days since Baalke, yet there’s always a first time. And, fortunately, Davis was merely a late sixth-round pick, nothing more.
With a stacked defensive line, the 49ers likely don’t need Davis anytime soon anyway, so this play does make sense if it pans out. As long as the Niners’ D-line depth remains a strength, redshirting Davis for future campaigns can still be on the docket.
It might be anyway.
Earlier this offseason, Lynch told reporters of Davis he wasn’t “sure if he’ll be ready for the start of the regular season.”
Instead, what San Francisco is likely to do here is to use an injury designation on the 6-foot-2, 310-pound lineman, perhaps placing him on the non-football injury list since his ACL tear occurred at the college level.
Perhaps the redshirting efforts actually work out this time around.