5 pending 49ers free agents who (probably) won't return in 2024
By Peter Panacy
No. 4: 49ers linebacker Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles
You'd be hard pressed to find a fan out there who dislikes linebacker Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles.
The undrafted free agent out of Arizona has turned into something of a minor success story with the 49ers since joining the fray in 2020, primarily as a special teams ace and a backup option in support of better-known names like Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw.
Yet there's a niche role for that, and Flannigan-Fowles landed it.
However, the Niners selected two other linebackers via the 2023 NFL Draft last April, TCU's Dee Winters and Purdue's Jalen Graham, both of whom will be gunning for Flannigan-Fowles' job this training camp.
Flannigan-Fowles certainly has an edge over those two rookies, but he also might be looking to land with a team where he'd have a more prominent role instead of looking up the depth chart at Warner and Greenlaw, who aren't going anywhere anytime soon.