"I think I'm going to go with 56," Alexander told team reporter Keiana Martin shortly after signing his four-year deal with the San Francisco 49ers. "I'm going to go with 56. I'm going to start something new."
It looks like Alexander got his wish. The new 49ers linebacker posted a photo on Instagram of his new No. 56 jersey.
As fans know, the last player to wear No. 56 was former first-round pick Reuben Foster, who was waived by the 49ers in November after a series of poor off-the-field decisions. If you bought a Foster jersey and are talented enough to do so, you can always update it by switching out the nameplate.
Alexander, 24, replaces Foster and is expected to line up next to second-year starter Fred Warner once he is healthy. He is rehabbing from an ACL injury suffered during Week 7 of the 2018 season.
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"There was a huge void there," general manager John Lynch recently said on KNBR. "We had drafted Reuben in our first draft thinking, 'Wow, this is the answer right here,' at an extremely important position in our scheme ... Things didn't work out, and so you have to own that, and then move forward. We had a void there, and we needed to fill it."
The 49ers hope he can be a tone-setter on defense.
I think there's players that are tone-setters, that kind of create an energy for their teammates that they can feed off, and Kwon's really one of those guys," Lynch continued. "You can see it through the film. You can see it when you talk to his teammates in Tampa, when you talk to anybody who's watched this guy play or played against him. He's that kind of player."
Alexander has recorded 380 combined tackles, seven sacks, 22 passes defensed, six interceptions, a touchdown, and six forced fumbles through his four NFL seasons.
H/t to Patrick Tulini for the find.
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