The San Francisco 49ers selected De’Zhaun Stribling at No. 33 overall in the 2026 NFL Draft, and it was a head-scratcher. After the Cleveland Browns took Texas A&M wide receiver KC Concepcion at No. 24 overall, a top Niners target came off the board. PFSN’s Football Debate Club breaks down the first surprise of Day 2 of the 2026 NFL Draft.
Why the De’Zhaun Stribling Pick at No. 33 Looks Like a Reach
Stribling came off the board as the first selection of Day 2. Ian Cummings and Jacob Infante of PFSN’s “Football Debate Club” had Stribling 180th and 200th on their personal boards; both stamped the pick with a D-minus grade on air.
That’s a full round’s worth of distance between San Francisco’s valuation and everyone else’s.
“Again, it is a little rich on the consensus board, but I think it’s a 49ers pick too. And I think because of that, he’s gonna be all right,” Cummings said. “It feels very much like a 49ers pick, where it’s a head-scratcher.”
The Ole Miss receiver is the type Kyle Shanahan usually finds in Round 4 or later. He measures 6-foot-2, 207 pounds, ran sub-4.4 at the combine, and plays with a mean streak as a run blocker that fits what Shanahan asks of his outside guys. Jauan Jennings built a career on that exact profile after arriving as a seventh-round pick in 2020, but now he’s a free agent. The traits are familiar. San Francisco just paid a premium for them this time.
The 49ers get a D- for taking De’Zhaun Stribling at No. 33. 📊
He was projected as a Day 3 selection on PFSN’s Big Board. pic.twitter.com/oMErHti4AG
— PFSN (@PFSN365) April 24, 2026
“You look at what Shannon has been able to do with receivers. Jauan Jennings was one who wasn’t very heralded coming out of college, but ended up being a very good player. And the Shanahan scheme, it’s so important to be able to do the dirty work, right?” argued Infante.
The 49ers walked into Thursday with six picks and a receiver room already rebuilt in free agency around Mike Evans and Christian Kirk. GM John Lynch’s priority was adding capital, which he did by sliding from No. 27 to No. 33 and picking up a third-rounder at No. 90 and a fifth-rounder at No. 179 in the process.
Then, they spent the first pick of Day 2 on a player most boards had two rounds lower.
“Yeah, I think it’s the way the board fell,” Lynch told reporters after Round 1. “There were a couple, a few players, that we would’ve taken had they been there. That didn’t happen.”
Stribling’s contested-catch numbers don’t help the case. He caught 46.2% of contested targets in 2025 and never cleared 50% in a fully healthy college season, an odd profile for a receiver whose selling points include strength and physicality. His route tree is still developing. Ole Miss manufactured a lot of his separation through pre-snap motion and rub concepts.
None of this guarantees Stribling will be a bust. Shanahan’s scheme has a long history of maximizing receivers who were overlooked elsewhere, and Lynch has earned some benefit of the doubt after Ricky Pearsall, whom ESPN’s Seth Walder called the largest non-quarterback reach of the 2024 first round, became a meaningful part of the offense.
The opportunity cost is the harder part to defend. Denzel Boston was still on the board at 33. So was Texas A&M guard Chase Bisontis, who would have addressed the left guard vacancy. Safety Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, a borderline first-round prospect who slid out of Day 1, was there. San Francisco picked the riskiest of the three, on a roster that’s running out of windows to develop a Round 4 receiver into a Round 2 contributor.
If Stribling hits, the trade-down math works and the scheme-fit gospel gets another sermon. If he doesn’t, this becomes the pick cited the next time a front office talks itself into reaching for a player it already paid to get to.
