After missing out on Eric Kendricks earlier in the week, the San Francisco 49ers may have gotten the help they're looking for at linebacker in the form of De'Vondre Campbell, who came to terms with the 49ers Friday on a one-year deal.
The 49ers appeared to have an agreement with Kendricks, but he backed out and signed with the Cowboys on Thursday instead. The team has since turned to Campbell, who can add some needed veteran experience at linebacker while Dre Greenlaw recovers from the torn Achilles tendon he suffered in Super Bowl LVIII.
Let's take a look at what to know about Campbell, who comes to the 49ers after the Green Bay Packers cut him in a cost-cutting move on March 10.
Peaks and valleys with the Packers
Campbell, 30, made a quick impression after signing with the Packers in 2021 following a season with the Arizona Cardinals. He quickly emerged as one of the leaders of the defense and made then-Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers wonder why he was still available when the Packers signed him in June.
"How in the hell was this guy on the street?" Rodgers said in October of 2021, per the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. "It's a great pickup by our personnel folks. He can run. He's a great tackler. He's around the ball all the time. He's a great locker-room guy. It's baffling to me, and we're just so thankful to have him."
Campbell had his best season as a pro with the Packers in 2021, finishing with 146 tackles, two sacks, and two interceptions en route to a first-team All-Pro selection. His performance led to a five-year, $50-million deal with the Packers in 2022. But Campbell's production would fall off over the following two seasons while he dealt with injuries.
In 2023, Campbell missed multiple games with a neck injury and multiple games with an ankle injury. Towards the end of the season, Campbell declared in a social media post that he was "not playing through injuries anymore."
Campbell finished his time with the Packers with 317 tackles, two sacks, and four interceptions. The Packers saved over $10 million in cap space by designating Campbell as a post-June 1 release.
A productive player before then
Campbell's NFL career prior to the Packers wasn't quite on the level of his 2021 season, but he was regarded as a solid player and leader nonetheless. He signed with the Cardinals on a one-year deal in 2020 after not finding the market he had hoped for in free agency and totaled 99 tackles and two sacks while starting 16 games.
Campbell played four seasons before then with the Atlanta Falcons, who selected him in the fourth round of the 2016 NFL Draft out of the University of Minnesota. Campbell started 54 games with the Falcons and totaled 363 tackles, 18 tackles for loss, 5.5 sacks, and five forced fumbles. Campbell was part of the 2016 Falcons Super Bowl team that included 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan as offensive coordinator.
Through eight NFL seasons, Campbell has started 110 of the 115 games he's played and has a total of 779 tackles, 40 tackles for loss, 22 quarterback hits, eight forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries, 9.5 sacks, and seven interceptions. He drew praise for his play against both the run and the pass in his All-Pro season with the Packers, so the 49ers will obviously be hoping he will be able to recapture that level of performance in 2024.
Academics first
Campbell was a lightly recruited player coming out of Cypress Lake High School in Fort Myers, Fla. He started out at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas, who gave him his lone scholarship offer after high school, then he moved to Minnesota in 2013. He posted 163 tackles, 13 tackles-for-loss, and 6.5 sacks for the Golden Gophers over the 2014 and 2015 seasons. Campbell finished with a degree in business and marketing education, which was a priority for him due to how he was raised by his mother Cathryn. When Campbell told his mother in the fifth grade that he wanted to be an NFL player, she responded by saying it was fine as long as he got his education first.
"At the draft, De'Vondre said, 'Thank God for you being on my back. Telling me to come home, go to school,'" Cathryn said in 2017, per the Fort Myers News-Press. "I said, 'You were a momma's boy.' He said, 'I'd rather be a momma's boy than nobody's boy.'"
Getting on track
Despite him saying at a young age that he wanted to be a football player, Campbell didn't get deep into the sport until high school, which helped lead to him being lightly recruited. But coaches saw potential in Campbell, who went on a growth spurt from 5-9 to 6-2 in high school. He also had unique speed, which gave him a needed confidence boost.
Once, at the Lee County Athletic Conference track meet, Campbell raced future NFL receiver Sammy Watkins, who was a well-known recruit with colleges from all over the country coming after his services. Campbell ran neck and neck with Watkins, and may or may not have come out ahead.
"Some people say he beat him, some say he didn't, but in my eyes he did," friend Anthony Roberts told the News-Press. "Other coaches said the same thing. That's when we really figured he was really fast. I think that gave him a lot of confidence and made him a better football player."
Giving back
Campbell has established a reputation for giving back to the community, both in Fort Myers and elsewhere. Campbell has his own charitable foundation, the De'Vondre Campbell Family Youth Foundation, and was the Packers' nominee for the NFL's Walter Payton Man of the Year Award in 2023. His recent charitable efforts include donating over $50,000 in gifts to 25 needy families at Christmas and giving $10,000 in school supplies to an elementary school in Green Bay.
Campbell has also been running a youth football camp for the past few years in Fort Myers, which is one of his favorite times of the year.
"It's very important to me," Campbell told the News-Press in 2021. "This is one of the few things I look forward to every year, you know, coming back to my hometown and being able to find a way to try to impact the youth."
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