Why the 49ers believe they’ve drafted the NFL’s next great little man

Want the latest Bay Area sports news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here to receive regular email blasts, plus “The Dime,” our twice-weekly sports newsletter.

The most joyous part of the job for 49ers general manager John Lynch and coach Kyle Shanahan may be their draft-time phone calls to the team’s selections.

Lynch, Shanahan, and owner Jed York deliver good news from one end while unbridled delight — the culmination of over a decade of work to achieve a monumental life goal — usually blasts back through the line.

The 49ers have made 77 such calls since Lynch and Shanahan were hired in 2017. But Lynch was very quick to acknowledge that not a single one was more euphoric than last month’s call to Western Kentucky defensive back Upton Stout, whom the 49ers drafted in the third round.

“Let’s do it, coach!” Stout yelled 13 times, too excited to be concerned with who was on the other end of the line at any given time (yes, he also called both Lynch and York “coach”). “You got the best DB.”

Stout also called him himself a “dawg” at least five times in just over a minute.

Earlier this month, The Standard visited Western Kentucky’s campus, where Hilltoppers head coach Tyson Helton said that the DB’s on-field motor matches the enthusiasm on display in that memorable first 49ers phone call.

“The ball finds him,” Helton said in his office. “There’s a talent in that. He drops into areas and has a knack for where that ball might be headed. He can judge it like a receiver and has great ball skills.

“You’re talking about a guy that spends a tremendous amount of time honing his craft. The guy sits in the front row every single meeting I ever had here. He has missile lock on you at all times. His eyes never leave you. You can tell the man is a sponge.”

Stout delivered six interceptions, 12 tackles for loss, 15 pass breakups, and 166 tackles over his three seasons at Western Kentucky.

Helton shared the story of a shoulder injury that was expected to sideline Stout for half of the 2024 season. He ended up missing only three weeks, thanks largely to a daily insistence on beating the training staff to the office at 6 a.m.

It’s worth noting that both Shanahan and Jim Harbaugh — by far the 49ers’ most successful coaches this century — recently wanted Stout.

Harbaugh is now the coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, but when still with the University of Michigan, he went after Stout in the transfer portal. Harbaugh has made “dawg” his own acronym — “disciplined athlete with grit” — and the descriptor certainly seems to fit Stout, who brushed off the perceived limitations of his 5-foot-8, 181-frame to achieve college stardom. Warren Ball, the 49ers’ area scout who discovered Stout, said he has “the heart of a lion.”

Stout pumped out 21 bench press reps of 225 pounds at the NFL Scouting Combine, the most of any DB at the event. Though the 49ers favorably compare him to their former nickelback K’Waun Williams, Stout is undeniably stronger (Williams put up only eight bench press reps) — and that startling metric helps illustrate defensive coordinator Robert Saleh’s vision for the rookie. The nickel position, aligned much closer to the physical fray than outside cornerback, is especially critical to blitzing and run defense.

“I’m like another linebacker, and you don’t want to be too small in the box,” said Stout, who lifted with linemen in college. “So when I moved to the nickel last season, my coach put a lot of emphasis on putting more weight on and lifting with different groups.

“If I’m not going to be the biggest, I for sure want to be one of the strongest.”

The 49ers’ desired personality type for the DB position can be traced all the way back to fiery future Hall of Famer Richard Sherman, who spent three productive seasons from 2018 to 2020 as a de facto coach on the field for the team. Although Sherman’s 49ers tenure didn’t overlap with current top corner Deommodore Lenoir’s, he did mentor Lenoir (Sherman’s friend coached Lenoir’s high school team in Los Angeles) — who plays and talks with similar bravado.

Lenoir put up better numbers than most cornerbacks selected to last season’s Pro Bowl and recently signed an extension worth up to $88.9 million with the 49ers, making him one of the team’s foundational pillars. His success, combined with the emergence of scrappy cornerback Renardo Green, helped solidify the DB blueprint that the 49ers believe Stout fits to a T.

“He’s an old-school guy,” Helton said. “He wants to be able to share ideas with coaches. He just treats it like a pro. He’s constantly trying to show the world that he’s trying to be the best in the business.

“He probably bought out every 49er hat he could find.”

The full interview with Helton can be found here in podcast form, and some of Helton’s best insights on Stout are transcribed below.

The Standard: I’m sure you’ve heard that first phone call with the 49ers. Is that energy reflective of Stout as a player and a person?

Helton: That’s Upton to a T. He is a guy who is always going to express how he feels. Our staff did a great job in really training Upton in how to channel your feelings and utilize them the correct way. When Upton first transferred from North Texas, you could feel that he was disgruntled and wanted to be that guy, be the starter. There were some trust issues early on. He didn’t trust people. And it was a scenario where you had to earn his trust.

Once Upton saw that we were willing to invest in him here, he really opened up. And you saw that personality. He’s definitely going to talk. He’s definitely going to let you know what he wants to do and how it’s going to happen, but he definitely backs it up.

He’s a guy that I’ve always enjoyed having conversations with, because he always seeks knowledge. I think the 49ers coaching staff will have a guy that they can have good, positive, back-and-forth conversations with.

Can you talk more about how the Western Kentucky staff built trust with Stout?

I loved everything about his story and the type of person he was and the fact that you had to earn his trust. I’m the same way. I’m not going to just sit here and say I met you and I trust everything that comes out of your mouth. That has to be earned. Upton was that way, too, and he’s clear about that. And I like that. You get to have grown man conversations with him.

Jason Veltkamp, the strength coach, Da’Von Brown [Stout’s DB coach] and Tyson Summers [Western Kentucky’s former defensive coordinator] all played a huge role in that. We knew what we were getting with Upton and it was our job to make sure we got the best out of him.

It certainly seems that this trust-building process worked, seeing that Stout had a chance to transfer to Michigan but chose to stay at Western Kentucky.

There’s life-changing money that he could have taken. But Upton was smart enough to play the long game. He knew the value of the long game. He knew he could go to one of those major Power-4 schools, get a good payday, but there’s no guarantee — am I going to be that guy? Am I going to get the opportunity to be able to perform on the platform that gives me that chance to be the highest draftable guy? Smart decision by him — and a lot of it went back to the trust factor with our staff.

He said, “Coach, this is the best platform for me to accomplish my main goal.” And I said, “What is that goal, Upton?” And he said, “I don’t just want to be an NFL guy, I want to be a first-three round guy.” He believed in the blueprint we had for him for this last season, and he went out and accomplished it.

And your smart football players that you see today that end up being the Upton Stouts… They’re the guys that keep the main thing the main thing. They love ball. And it’s about, “I want to be a pro and I want to play at the highest level. And to do that, I have to be on a platform where my abilities can be showcased at the highest level.”

Stout had a pick-six in his first game with you. What did that show you about him as a corner?

Hey, we may need to put this guy on offense a little bit [laughs]. He’s a pretty good ball guy. He has a knack for understanding what his role is in the defense and what’s going to happen. He understands situational football. When you think back to that time, he knew the ball was going to be thrown. He knew the area it might be thrown in. He knew his role and his fit in that defense. And he knew the ball was probably going to find him at some point in that game.

I’ve seen him on a corner blitz, where he’s supposed to be coming from the boundary, he’s got his ears pinned back, he stops, hits the brakes, cause he goes, “I’ll be danged because this quarterback is gonna hit me in the heart with this dang football”, and the quarterback does it and he picks it and takes it to the house. That’s a ball guy. That’s a guy who understands the game. That’s a guy who’s usually your best player, which he was for us.

The biggest knock on Stout is his 5-8 height, but were there times that he was able to actually parlay that — and his corresponding agility — into an advantage?

Sometimes the smaller, shorter guys are harder to see when blitzing — they get lost in the traffic. Sometimes it’s harder for a quarterback to see them.

But there’s deficiencies, too, right? A talented big man is better than a talented little man. So Upton has to bring that chip on his shoulder to the table. He’s got to show up to the park mad. His intensity level has to go above and beyond, because he will at times be matched up with a more talented man. So he’s got to find a way to win. More often than not, Upton’s going to find a way to win. I do think there’s a skill level there from the ball skill standpoint; he can play slot receiver, too — if he needed to. Your best coverage players can run the route for the receiver, before they even break it. And Upton has all those abilities to do all those things.

How did his move to nickel within the context of Western Kentucky’s scheme prepare him for that role with the 49ers?

Our defense is very multiple. That nickel spot, just like the 49ers, is asked to do a lot. We are an exotic pressure defense, particularly in passing defense. When you have a guy who can blitz and he has great ball skills, great coverage skills, you can do a lot more within the defense. So Upton played a huge role in that, so it allowed us to have a lot of different packages, do a lot of different things with him.

We’re bringing him on a blitz, bluffing him, and dropping him into coverage. We’re asking him to match up man on the best receiver — the NFL, your best skill players are your best cover guys. Upton has excellent coverage skills. Excellent. You can match him up with a marquee receiver and say, yes, he can play man coverage. So for a defensive coordinator, that helps you a ton. It gives you an extra [quarterback] hitch and you can do different things from a pressure standpoint, all those kinds of things.

The second thing you can do with Upton: His blitzability, his durability, his aggressiveness, his knack to get after the quarterback, his timing with the pressures when he is coming on a blitz — not showing it and giving it away. He does a great job with his eyes. You have man eyes and zone eyes. A lot of DBs can’t stand it, they want peek back and look at that quarterback. Well that quarterback is playing that game, too, right? So if you’re showing zone eyes or man eyes, he’s going to know. Upton knows how to play the cat-and-mouse game.

What’s the most impressive thing you saw from Stout?

The man never stops. He wants every rep. He’s a coach on the field. He’s in a different role now. He’s the rookie there. He’s trying to earn his way. But Upton is a guy that, if he’s not taking a rep, he’s watching every snap and he’s having conversations with the men who took those reps and that’s impressive to see. He is locked in at all times.

The guy ran thousands of yards every practice. I literally would have to tell our training staff, “Guys, we’re not halfway through the practice, he’s at his max, we need to shut him down.” He was the top guy every day. He was doing something pre-practice, took a ton of reps in practice, loved special teams.

When I talk about pro mentality, that’s what you’ve got to do.