It seems like every San Francisco 49ers player and coach has been raving about wide receiver Mike Evans. He was San Francisco's huge offseason acquisition, and so far, he has lived up to the billing.
He’s also exposing a huge weakness on the 49ers.
Tight end George Kittle spoke about how good Evans has looked recently and said the following:
“Everybody is getting cooked by Mike. It’s awesome to watch and I’ll say that to [Deommodore Lenoir’s] face. I haven’t watched every practice, but I saw highlights and every one of those highlights, it wasn’t DMO every single time, but DMO got his work in and it was great to see, but I didn’t see any clips of DMO locking him down. It was awesome and know Mike had 3three touchdowns in one red-zone period.”
Lenoir is the best cornerback on the 49ers. San Francisco signed him to a long-term extension in 2024 because it believed he could be a shutdown guy going forward. He played fine in 2025, but Lenoir is not a Pro Bowl or All-Pro sort of player the same way Charvarius Ward was when he was with the Niners, and Evans is reminding everyone of that.
Lenoir is feisty and plays with an edge. He’s gone up against Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Jaxson Smith-Njigba several times and has come out on top, but he can still get beat at times as can the entire secondary.
Lenoir isn’t perfect, but he’s far from San Francisco’s biggest worry when it comes to the defensive backfield. Renardo Green is obviously the weak link at cornerback, and it wouldn’t be a shock if teams try to pick on him next season. The 49ers say they have trust in him, but it will be interesting to see how long that trust lasts, especially with rookie Ephesians Prysock behind him on the depth chart.
Upton Stout was solid in 2025 as the nickel corner, but there’s always a fear of a sophomore slump. Speaking of sophomore slumps, safety Ji’Ayir Brown had a rough year two in 2024 but played better last season. He and Malik Mustapha need to step up their game this season at safety because they were not fully up to snuff last season.
Going up against Evans in practice could be the best thing for all of these guys, though. Lenoir should benefit the most since he’s going to be going up against one of the best veteran receivers in the game. But everyone in the secondary is going to have to step things up.
One hopes Evans will make the secondary better and not just expose the fact that the secondary is a roster weakness that general manager John Lynch didn’t do a whole lot to address in the offseason.
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