via imgsrv.955thegame.com

Disclaimer:  I am a huge Clay Matthews fan and would kill to have him in our defense.

The long and short of this post is that I want the 49ers to draft Casey Matthews (no, not in the first round), Ideally in the third, or even second round.  While I know he is not Clay, I think he will continue to improve and think he would be great to have picking up his grandfathers legacy on the Niners and playing alongside Willis inside for years, or possibly moving outside as suggested here at Draft Soup.

I feel that he has a lot of the same knocks that Clay did coming into the draft and that he still has room to get better as far as strength and conditioning and gaining size.  I have seen him in mocks going as early as the second, or as late as the third with speculation that he could move up even higher with good combine numbers.  I am still waiting on those but I think based on his performance at Oregon, leading the Ducks with 73 tackles, but also added 8.5 tackles-for-loss, 3.0 sacks, three interceptions and five passes defended.  He runner up for the Butkis award and all Pac-10 in addition to his abilities, intelligence on the field, obvious pedigree, and room for further growth I would be willing to take a bit of a flier or even move up in the middle rounds to grab him.  This would be particularly true if we take a CB in the first and trade for a QB, dont see our QBOTF in the draft.

CHECK OUT THE HIGHLIGHT VIDEO HERE

Anyone else like to weigh in?  I'd be very curious to see if anyone else was interested in putting a Matthews back in Red and Gold, if they think he could grow into a 3-4 pass rusher or play inside etc.  Where would you be willing to take him?