The San Francisco 49ers pulled off the Day 2 Houdini, picking Ole Miss WR De'Zhaun Stribling in the very first minutes of Round 2 at No. 33.
It was a bolt from the blue no one saw coming, in the very least. No one in the building—and certainly no one on the draft boards—saw the 49ers moving on Stribling.
San Francisco 49ers pull off a massive shocker with De'Zhaun Stribling
However, Lynch and Shanahan have absolutely hit pay dirt with Stribling while the rest of the teams were waiting to call his name.
All the inside buzz from San Francisco hardly ever had Stribling's name, and the Niners weren't even on the list of hottest teams chasing the Ole Miss WR. In fact, they weren't even on his Top 30 visit list altogether. Vikings, Packers, Colts, Eagles, Saints, and more were the teams that Stribling was high on the board for.
All those receiver-needy teams will be kicking themselves on losing out an elite vertical threat with equally dangeroud speed in a 6'2" frame.
As for the Niners, Stribling's elite 4.36 second in his 40-yard off-the-charts speed for a WR fits perfectly into the 'grit factory' locker room famous for being the most physical in the NFL, led by guys like Deebo Samuel and Jauan Jennings,
He will need months of training before he can get the ground running with Brock Purdy to smooth out the creases for a Sunday-night performance, but overall, the Niners have a solid Day 1 WR2 at hand, with massive potential to be a breakout WR1 with some NFL seasoning.
Stribling had a career-high 55 catches in 2025 with the Rebels. He racked up 811 yards and six touchdowns.
Add us as a preferred source on Google