PFF names Notre Dame cornerback as 49ers’ best Day 2 fit

With the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft in the rearview mirror, Pro Football Focus (PFF) contributor Josh Liskiewitz released a list of the best Day 2 fits for each NFL team. For the San Francisco 49ers, he highlighted Notre Dame cornerback Benjamin Morrison as the ideal target.

"Morrison allowed just 44.4% of passes into his coverage to be completed in 2024," Liskiewitz noted.

Morrison (6-0, 193) has earned a PFF defensive grade of 71.4 or higher in each of his three seasons with the Fighting Irish. In 2024, he was limited to just six games due to a hip injury, but did not allow a single touchdown across 168 coverage snaps. He finished the season with 20 tackles and four passes defensed, per Sports Reference.

According to PFF's analytics, his most impressive season came in 2023, when he posted a career-high 79.4 defensive grade and an 84.6 coverage grade, along with three interceptions. As a freshman All-American the year before, he recorded a career-best six interceptions.

PFF currently ranks Morrison as the fifth-best cornerback in the 2025 draft class.

"Morrison is a smart, smooth-moving man coverage cornerback with good instincts for making plays on the ball," PFF wrote in his draft profile. "Getting back to form after hip surgery and getting a bit stronger are the keys to a future starting outside cornerback role in a man coverage system -- but really any system."