Sauce Gardner light? The San Francisco 49ers are hopeful Renardo Green can become the dominant cornerback Robert Saleh had in New York. According to defensive line coach Kris Kocurek, the biggest change we’ll see from the Niners’ defense will come in the back end. Believe it or not, coverage was a strength for the Niners in 2024. Fred Warner boosts those numbers, but Green was remarkable as a rookie.
Today, we’ll talk about how the second-year cornerback will be one of the biggest beneficiaries, with Saleh calling the shots.
Basic Info
Age: 24
Experience: 1 accrued season
Height: 6’
Weight: 186 pounds
Cap Status
Green enters the second season of his four-year rookie deal. His base salary in 2025 is $1,085,449, with a cap number of $1.45 million. Green will also receive $366,795 of his prorated signing bonus in 2025.
A wonderful rookie
Saying Green “held his own” as a rookie would be selling him short. He only allowed three touchdowns on 57 targets, with a completion percentage of 52.6. Green also tied for 12th in the NFL in pass breakups as a rookie. What makes that number so impressive is that Green accomplished that feat while doing so on fewer targets than anybody ranked ahead of him. For example, Christian Gonzalez had 13 pass breakups on 77 targets. Green had 12 on 57.
Green was not bashful when it came to guarding top-flight wideouts or coming up and making tackles in the run game. There was a lot to like about his rookie profile, which is why Saleh name-dropped Green when he talked about the differences in the 2025 defense compared to the unit in 2017.
Replacing Mooney
On Monday, we attempted to simmer expectations for rookie CJ West. We will not be doing that for Green today. The 49ers selected Green in the second round of the 2024 NFL Draft with the thought that he’d replace either Deommodore Lenoir or Charvarius Ward. After extending Lenoir in November, it became clear that Green would take on a bigger role in Year 2.
Mooney was amazing. The better the defensive coordinator, the better Ward was. He was at his best under DeMeco Ryans, wasn’t far off those numbers under Steve Wilks, and dipped a bit last season under Nick Sorensen — and dealt with circumstances in his life that no human should have to endure.
During his first couple of years, Mooney would shadow the other team’s top wide receivers. Saleh did that with Sauce when he was with the Jets. Knowing that Lenoir has made a home at nickel, it’ll be interesting to see how often, or if at all, Saleh asks Green to do the same thing.
DeMeco was comfortable enough to leave Ward on an island. When you do that, you can allocate help toward your cornerback on the other side who needs it. Essentially, you can dictate where the offense throws the ball and fool them into thinking a throw 30 yards down the field and outside the numbers is a high-percentage throw.
Green has big shoes to fill if he is indeed going to take on what Mooney did with the Niners. However, that’s also a significant reason why the defense was so successful at limiting big plays over the past couple of seasons. A Saleh defense is at its best when it has a chess piece at cornerback. This defense needs that player to be Green.