“If you talk to him about releases and certain wideouts, he can go for 5-10 minutes without interruption,” Fuller said. “As I got to know him, that just showed how detailed he is as a corner. That’s just who he is.”
There’s the theme of tenacity that lies beneath the focus on football’s details, though, and that might’ve been the selling point for the 49ers on Green and Bethune.
“With Tatum, it was me trying to make sure he didn’t try to separate the head from another human being every time he tried to tackle somebody,” Fuller said. “Understand there’s a time to pull your trigger and there’s a time to just go make a tackle. There were so many good moments with him.”
Perhaps the best illustration of Green’s spirit came in his interaction over the phone with 49ers defensive backs coach Daniel Bullocks before the draft.
“One thing he said was that he wouldn’t want to fight me,” Green said. “I asked him why and he said, ‘Because I feel like you’ll fight until you die.’
“I said, ‘Yeah, that’s what a dog is. You ever seen a dog fight?’ So, he’s seen a lot of things, just on paper about me as a person and how I am. You’re getting a dog, a tenacious football player, an instinctive, athletic football player and a versatile, smart football player.”
“There’s a lot of noise out there (most of it uninformed) about the San Francisco 49ers’ position on receiver Brandon Aiyuk, and the possibility that things are devolving to the point where the second-team All-Pro could be traded. I wouldn’t listen to that. Not, yet, at least,
