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When the San Francisco 49ers decided to bring in De’Vondre Campbell over retaining long-time reserve Oren Burks heading into the 2024 NFL season, it made all the sense in the world.
Initially playing for Kyle Shanahan during their shared time in Atlanta with the Falcons, Campbell came to San Francisco with more pedigree, more positional versatility, and, most crucially, more starts, which was important since Dre Greenlaw was expected to miss much of the season after suffering an Achilles injury in the Super Bowl.
Fast-forward to the end of the 2024 NFL season, and Burks is a Super Bowl Champion, having shown out in the playoffs starting in place of an injured Nakobe Dean and is now in line for a nice pay bump heading into free agency, where some team may be willing to give him a new, long-term contract and a chance to start.
And as for Campbell? Well, he famously quit on his team in the middle of a game and was thoroughly trashed by darn near every member of the franchise who chose to speak on the matter.
Highlighting the contrast between the two players on social media, 49ers writer Grant Cohn pointed out how much better Burks’ season turned out to be versus Campbell’s, as his playoff stat line alone clearly proves.
The 49ers had this guy but thought De’Vondre Campbell would be better. https://t.co/KLNjxuBYGm
— Grant Cohn (@grantcohn) February 12, 2025
Goodness, Burks had 25 more playoff tackles than anyone on the 49ers roster. Granted, the 49ers didn’t make the playoffs period, so everyone with a tackle cleared that bar, but hey, considering Burks had more than twice the number of tackles in his first playoff run with the Eagles versus two seasons in San Francisco, his numbers are impressive to be sure.
With Greenlaw set to hit the open market next month, all 32 teams will have to weigh his past success versus his largely lost 2024 season. While the 49ers have made it abundantly clear that they want to bring back Greenlaw moving forward, assuming he isn’t offered a king’s handsome by some linebacker-needy team, could a Burks reunion be in the cards in San Francisco as well?
Because Robert Saleh runs a 4-3, the 49ers technically need three starting-caliber linebackers, and considering how Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles played in 2024, even if Greenlaw returns, bringing back a player like Burks could be viewed as an upgrade both for base downs and in terms of subpackage depth. Throw in the fact that Burks shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg to re-acquire, as the Eagles paid him less than $2 million for his efforts in 2024, and who knows, maybe a big reunion could be in store for Shanahan’s squad and their former special teams ace out of Vanderbilt.
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