49ers rookie LB Nick Martin brings powerful personality to weakside spot

New York Times

02-06-2025

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Nick Martin and his three older brothers used to fight so much that their mother bought them boxing gloves to cushion the blows.
Which, the San Francisco 49ers rookie recalled with a laugh, led to even more fighting in the form of neighborhood boxing tournaments.
'I lost a lot in the beginning because I was fighting people that were like five years older than me,' said Martin, who figures he was 7 when the bouts began. 'But I feel like that helped me grow in my mind, how to approach battles on and off the field. And then I started winning.'
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That's been the story of his life. Growing up in Texarkana, Texas, Martin was never the biggest kid on the block. But he's always been a wicked hitter.
That helps explain why the 49ers took the 5-foot-11, 221-pound linebacker with the 11th pick in the third round. One of the lessons from an awful 2024 season was how badly they missed Dre Greenlaw, their ferocious weakside linebacker who sat out all but 34 snaps due to an Achilles injury. When Greenlaw went to the Denver Broncos in free agency, the 49ers were compelled to find someone who could tackle, cover and set a furious tone like he did.
The search led to Martin.
'You've heard of a sideline-to-sideline guy,' said former Oklahoma State linebacker Kenyatta Wright, who's now the program's financial director. 'Well, Nick is a football-field guy. Wherever you are on a football field, he's going to be there.'
The other reason the 49ers fell for Martin is the small-bodied linebacker's big-time charisma. He likes art, music, has his own fashion line and taught himself to play the guitar. On his first full day with the 49ers last month, he had the confidence to walk around in oversized shark slippers in the locker room and in his media appearance. He has about 10 pairs of animal slippers, including wolves and puppies, and he's not afraid to let the dogs out.
'I'm pretty comfortable with who I am,' he said. 'And I've always worn 'em, so why change?'
Nick 'Jaws' Martin pic.twitter.com/8GY5pWvZZ4
— Matt Barrows (@mattbarrows) May 8, 2025
The 49ers note he was a two-time team captain at Oklahoma State. After he injured his MCL ligament in the fifth game last season, coach Mike Gundy petitioned the Big 12 to allow Martin to travel with the team. That's how important he was to the locker room, meeting room and sideline, even when he wasn't playing. The 49ers hope he has the same effect on a rookie class that, especially on defense, is expected to log plenty of snaps this season.
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'It's important when we're considering how the rookies are going to mesh together,' the 49ers' top scout, Tariq Ahmad, explained regarding Martin. 'Who's going to be the leader of that group? Who's going to push guys to watch extra tape, to be on the field extra?'
Martin's mother, Tosha, describes her youngest son as 'joyful.' He was always upbeat, always curious, always joking. Older brother Chauncey goes with 'goofy.'
'He'd come hang around my friends and he'd cut jokes,' Chauncey said. 'But they were jokes I'd already heard. That's my little brother, and I'd be like, 'Stop being annoying.' But to my friends, he was hilarious. And I'd say, 'Bro, don't laugh at him. Don't egg him on.''
Nick — or Nickolas, as his mother invariably calls him — is close to all his brothers. But his relationship with Chauncey, who is nearest in age, is special.
They grew up sharing a bedroom and dreams about playing in the NFL. They'd play 'Madden' and assure each other their names would one day appear on the screen. In the living room, Chauncey would get on his knees and pretend he was Ray Lewis. Nick, in the role of Reggie Bush, would try to get past him. All the Martin boys played football. Chauncey and Nick loved football.
'We just had a bond,' Chauncey said. 'Even though we had two older brothers, we were close. We shared a room our whole life. It was me and him.'
Being three years older, Chauncey was the first to find football glory. He was the running back on Pleasant Grove High's first-ever state champion team, which in East Texas is akin to landing on the moon or winning Olympic gold.
Nick, speedy but scrawny and not ready for the varsity squad, came to be known as 'Chauncey's little brother.'
'He didn't like that,' Tosha said. 'It motivated him.'
Every time he was dismissed as too small, he hit the weight room. Whenever he was obscured by Chauncey's shadow, he'd try to outrun it by getting faster.
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He loved his brother, tried to be like his brother, but also wanted — no, needed — to make a name for himself. And by his junior season, he was playing linebacker and running back while leading Pleasant Grove to another state title.
The only problem was that Chauncey wasn't around to see it. He and four other 19-year-olds were arrested for their roles in a robbery that occurred in January 2019 in Texarkana. Chauncey was kicked off the East Texas A&M football team and sentenced to nearly two and a half years in prison.
He saw bits and pieces of Nick's freshman season at Oklahoma State from the day room of Barry B. Telford prison in nearby South Boston, Texas.
'I'd point to the TV and say, 'There you go — he's right there!'' Chauncey recalled. 'I think he was like No. 46 back then. I'd say, 'That's him right there on kickoff (coverage). He's the first one down there on kickoffs.' It would just give me like a smile, you know, on a Saturday to see my brother on TV playing ball.'
Chauncey was released just as Nick was making his ascent at Oklahoma State. By his third season there, the days of being known as Chauncey's little brother were long gone. He was no longer a special teamer. He wasn't even always Nick. Teammates instead started calling him 'Missile' for the way he took down ball carriers.
His 2023 season, which truly caught the 49ers' attention, included a Big 12-best 140 tackles, 16 stops behind the line of scrimmage and six sacks.
'I've never seen a guy who was carrying a football who didn't drop as soon as Nick tackled him,' said Oklahoma State's Wright, who played six NFL seasons. 'His ability to get guys down at the point of attack was unbelievable. His speed to the ball was amazing.'
Wright noted that Martin regularly would come into his office to talk linebackers and that his favorite NFL player to dissect was Fred Warner. Martin had Warner's No. 54 jersey long before the 49ers drafted him.
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Warner said last week that rookies are usually reticent about asking him questions — 'the whole 'too cool' thing,' he said. But Martin hasn't been shy. At all.
'He's come in and asked me every single question known to man,' Warner said. 'It's like, 'Fred, how are you doing this? What are you doing after practice? What are you doing after lifts?' And he's wanting to be part of those (activities). … He already has the mindset of wanting to learn.'
As for older brother Chauncey, at one point, he was Nick's inspiration. Now it's the other way around.
Chauncey said that when he was in high school, he got an offer from Harding University, a Division II Christian school in Arkansas. He turned it down.
'I didn't want to go because of the structure, and it was a private, Christian school,' he said. 'I was like, 'Man, I want to go to school to have fun.' And I ended up getting in trouble.'
When he was released from prison, the offer from Harding was still on the table. This time, he grabbed it with gratitude. He played running back for the Bison for three seasons and recently graduated with a degree in business management.
Now, as Nick learns the 49ers' defense from Warner, Chauncey is trying to catch on with a UFL team. He says his little brother inspired him to re-focus on their shared passion for football.
'I'm in a way better place,' he said. 'And Nick is some of the reason for that. Seeing my little brother accomplish all this stuff we used to talk about, it just makes me want to keep going.'