San Francisco used the No. 33 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft — the first selection of round 2 — on Stribling, a receiver who bounced from Washington State to Oklahoma State before landing at Ole Miss for his final college season. He wasn't a consensus top prospect at the position, and some analysts thought San Francisco reached to get him. Didn't matter. Reportedly, several teams actually had him rated as WR1 in the class.
That backstory matters now because Stribling has spent training camp making that pick look prescient. He's shown up in report after report as one of the standout performers at SAP Performance Facility, drawing praise for pairing 4.36 speed with polish most rookies don't have this early. Now the takes are getting louder.
That's 49ers reporter Grant Cohn putting it as bluntly as it gets: Stribling isn't just a nice camp story, he's the only receiver on the roster he expects to actually scare opposing defenses in 2026. That's a real claim about a real depth chart, not just hype for a rookie who looked good in shorts.
De'Zhaun Stribling getting nominated as the best WR on the team based on camp practices.
Hayden Winks framing it as Stribling getting "nominated" for the team's best-receiver title captures where the conversation actually sits — this isn't settled, it's a nomination building steam. Camp reps and highlight throws are one thing; nobody's played a preseason down yet, and hype like this evaporates fast once pads come on for real games.
Stribling did miss a handful of practices with hamstring tightness before returning, a reminder that a strong camp is still just a camp. But for a 49ers offense that's been searching for a true difference-maker at receiver, a rookie forcing this kind of talk in August is exactly the kind of story worth tracking into preseason.