Pro Football Talk is reporting this morning that the San Francisco 49ers are shopping defensive lineman Solomon Thomas ahead of the 2019 NFL Draft, which kicks off later today.
Just heard 49ers are shopping Solomon Thomas, the third pick in the 2017 draft.
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) April 25, 2019
Thomas, 23, is preparing to enter his third NFL season after 49ers general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan made him the No. 3 overall selection in 2017 and the first of their regime.
Linebacker Reuben Foster, who was also a first-round selection from the same draft class, is no longer on the roster. He was waived in November after displaying a series of poor off-the-field decisions.
Thomas hasn't made the impact fans had hoped from a player who was made the No. 3 overall pick. He had to deal with the passing of his sister in January of last year, which likely and understandably impacted his play last season. Thomas has since been working to increase awareness in suicide prevention and was recently honored with the inaugural Eve R. Meyer legacy award for his ongoing efforts to help those struggling with depression that might lead to tragedy.
Lynch discussed both Thomas and Arik Armstead during his pre-draft press conference on Monday.
"We're excited about both those guys," Lynch told reporters. "We're not making a big change to our system, but we did go out and bring in (defensive line coach) Kris Kocurek to work along with (pass rush specialist) Chris Kiffin.
"One thing that Kyle really respected about Kris Kocurek, who is really regarded as one of the top D-Line coaches, is his style. That's just cutting it loose. We think that really lends to both Arik and Solomon in what they do and what they need to do to be successful.
"Like I said, we want to come at people in waves. Both of those guys, I think, are very good players that we're very excited about for this season, in this kind of new tweaked style that we're going to be implementing."
Thomas registered 31 combined tackles and a sack through 16 games and 13 starts with the 49ers in 2018. He has recorded 72 combined tackles and four sacks through his two NFL seasons.
| Career Statistics | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Team | G | GS | Comb | Total | Ast | Sck | SFTY | PDef | Int |
| 2018 | 49ers | 16 | 13 | 31 | 24 | 7 | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | 49ers | 14 | 12 | 41 | 34 | 7 | 3.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 72 | 58 | 14 | 4.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
H/t to Levin T. Black for the find.