Gamecock dad Deion Sanders’ thoughts on Javon Kinlaw: ‘a bona fide baller’
Deion Sanders knows a little something about the San Francisco 49ers, having played for their Super Bowl championship team in 1994. And he knows a little something about South Carolina defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw because his son Shilo was Kinlaw’s teammate during the 2019 football season.
And after his son’s teammate joined his old team as the No. 14 pick in last week’s NFL Draft, he used that first-hand experience to grade the pick.
“When you bring in Kinlaw, my son plays for the University of South Carolina, and watching this guy rush the passer, he’d show up in and out every day, every game,” Sanders said in an NFL Network segment. “This guy is a bona fide baller.”
Sanders was in the midst of explaining how the Niners did the best job of filling needs in a draft that netted them several other SEC faces in Charlie Woerner out of Georgia and Jauan Jennings, who played a role in Tennessee downing the Gamecocks last season.
In terms of filling needs, Kinlaw will play a big role in filling the spot left by all-pro DeForest Buckner, one of top defensive tackles in the NFL who was traded to Indianapolis this offseason.
Kinlaw is coming off a banner season in which he had six sacks and overall had a much larger impact on games. He often blew up opposing game plans, like against Georgia, and created havoc against other future pros, like in the Alabama game.
He had the chance to leave after the 2018 season with a mid-round grade, but he chose to come back and had it pay off.
San Francisco is coming off a trip to the Super Bowl after a rebuilding job following the program bottoming out under Jim Tomsula and Chip Kelly. The team is now coached by Kyle Shanahan with John Lynch as GM, and their work also impress Shilo Sanders’ father.
“These two guys, the head coach and the GM, Lynch, they know what they’re doing,” Deion Sanders said. “I like the understanding of a good head coach and a guy who formerly played the game. That’s a tremendous hook-up.”
