“Old, expensive and brittle”: NFL analyst Colin Cowherd goes off on Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers roster technique after Mike Evans, Dre Greenlaw signing

Colin Cowherd thinks the San Francisco 49ers are making a mistake. The NFL analyst says the team is paying big money for older players who get hurt often, criticizing 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch for re-signing linebacker Dre Greenlaw and adding receiver Mike Evans.

“They’re really old and really expensive and really brittle,” Cowherd said on “The Colin Cowherd Show” on Thursday. “And the issue is that it’s hard in pro sports. Older players get hurt more often and take longer to recover. And in football, you know, you’re getting tackled. There’s a lot of a regulated level of violence.

“Niners, again this offseason, they go get Mike Evans and Dre Greenlaw, older players who have had injuries. They paid Trent Williams and Christian McCaffrey and George Kittle, older players who have had injuries. Now, I’m not denying the greatness of the aforementioned players, but here is Kyle Juszczyk saying, ‘I like where we are.’ There’s no easy games here out in the NFC West, for sure.”

Greenlaw signed a one-year, $7.5 million deal with San Francisco in March. He had spent the previous year with the Denver Broncos, who released him after an injury-filled season. Evans joins the 49ers after years as a top receiver in Tampa Bay. Both players joined a roster that already pays big money to veterans like Trent Williams, Christian McCaffrey and George Kittle.

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Colin Cowherd compares 49ers to Seattle and Rams

Colin Cowherd said the 49ers hold onto players too long, even when things go wrong. He pointed to how long the team kept receivers Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk before trading them. He also mentioned San Francisco’s bad losses to the Rams and Seahawks late last season.

“Over the last several years, the Rams and the Seahawks, to me, feel like young, athletic, they’ve moved off needy players,” Colin said.

“Seattle and the Rams, they don’t get nostalgic at all,” Colin Cowherd said. “I think the Niners have gotten kind of nostalgic.”

The 49ers open the 2026 season against the Rams in Australia, with Mike Evans and Dre Greenlaw both expected to play big roles right away. The concern on many people’s minds is their tendency to get injured.