The 49ers came out of the 2026 draft with a clear problem to solve: not enough speed off the edge. They addressed it in the third round by taking Romello Height, and now they've made it official with a rookie contract that gets him locked into the building well before training camp starts.
49ers signed their third-round pick, edge rusher Romello Height, to his four-year $7.29 million contract.
Per Schefter, the deal is worth $7.29 million over four years, standard rookie-scale money for where Height was drafted at No. 70 overall. Reports pegged the signing bonus around $1.79 million with a modest 2026 cap hit near $1.33 million, the kind of number that lets San Francisco add a piece without touching the books.
Height's path here wasn't a straight line. He bounced through Auburn, USC and Georgia Tech before landing at Texas Tech, where his college career finally clicked. Over six college seasons he put up 111 tackles, 27 tackles for loss and 16.5 sacks, but it was that final year in Lubbock, with 10 sacks and 11.5 tackles for loss in 14 starts, that turned him into a Day 2 pick.
At 6-foot-3, 239 pounds, Height's calling card is speed off the edge, and San Francisco is expected to plug him in almost immediately as a nickel pass-rusher. That's not a throwaway role for a rookie -- it's a direct response to a defense that couldn't consistently get after the quarterback last season.
Getting a rookie's paperwork done in early July is about as routine as NFL business gets, but for a team hoping a Day 2 pick turns into a rotational difference-maker right away, there's real value in having him signed, focused and ready to compete for reps the second camp opens instead of holding out through a negotiation over rookie-scale pennies.