NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport joined KNBR on Monday morning and did not mince words while discussing the latest troubling development out of San Francisco.
The 49ers' star linebacker, Reuben Foster, was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence at the team hotel in Tampa, Florida on Saturday night. The alleged victim? The same on-and-off-again girlfriend who earlier accused him of the same crime and got him arrested back in February.
The 49ers, having poured substantial resources into Foster since the offseason, had enough and announced on Sunday that the former first-round draft pick would be released. The move will become official on Monday.
"With Reuben Foster, he is a — for the lack of a better term — a con artist," Rapoport said on the "Murph & Mac" show. "It's always what he's been. He has spent a lot of time in his life convincing people that he's good, he's got it, he's under control. What you thought you saw happen was a mistake. He'll never do it again, and this is not the person he is.
"He has become so good at it that I think he fooled a lot of people. It's not just the 49ers. At Alabama, he kind of did the same thing. Despite the fact that the behavior has repeated itself, he still gets a lot of people to believe in him. It really is like getting conned. How do these smart people fall for this? And the answer is because they see what these guys do.
"Obviously, it's bad. It's a failed draft pick. It was something where I kind of believed that Foster would — from what I knew, from the people I know, from the stories I've gotten —I kind of believed also that Foster was turning a corner and heading in the right direction.
"It's a complete failure, and the only thing I can say is it's good that the 49ers moved on as quickly as they did."
The 49ers made Foster the No. 31 overall draft pick in 2017. They traded back into the first round to select the linebacker, sending their original second-round pick and the fourth-round pick that they acquired via a trade with the Chicago Bears earlier in the round to the Seattle Seahawks.
NFL teams will be able to put in a claim for Foster once he is officially waived at 1 p.m. PT. Rapoport doesn't see that happening and believes teams will wait for the legal process to play out. Anything is possible beyond that.
"The NFL has a short memory," Rapoport said. "I would expect him to be back. I just don't think it will be immediate."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Rapoport below.