NFC Notes: Will Johnson, Matthew Stafford, 49ers, Cardinals, Rams

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49ers When asked about which rookies impressed him the most during the 49ers’ OTAs, Matt Barrows of The Athletic writes that fifth-round LB Jaden Dugger got time at the strongside position after Luke Gifford suffered a concussion. However, Barrows is unsure if Dugger will land the starting role. Barrows also writes that second-round WR De’Zhaun Stribling and third-round RB Kaelon Black were impressive in one of the practices he attended, and he’s heard that coaches liked what they saw from fourth-round CB Ephesians Prysock . Barrows names the following undrafted free agents as candidates to make San Francisco’s active roster: P Jack Bouwmeester, TE Khalil Dinkins , DT Bryson Eason, DT James Thompson Jr. , and DE Mikail Kamara . Barrow senses that the 49ers are done at the safety position and San Francisco is comfortable finding the right mix with Ji’Ayir Brown , Malik Mustapha , Marques Sigle , and Ashtyn Davis . Barrows could see CB Renardo Green being the team’s most likely trade candidate during the preseason, given they have depth at cornerback with Nate Hobbs , Jack Jones , and Prysock. Cardinals Cardinals CB Will Johnson spoke about having to take on three of the best teams in the league for a total of six of their games, as they are a part of one of the toughest divisions in football. “I mean, I love it. I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Johnson said during an appearance on SiriusXM NFL Radio . “That’s the best. You get to go against the best every week, and that’s how you prove you’re the best. It’s a great [division]. I think we got a good opportunity in front of us to surprise a lot of people this year. They’re just continuing to try to stack the teams against us, but we gonna be ready when the time comes.” Rams Rams HC Matthew Stafford believes that employing 13 personnel is something unique to the team and would be hard for the rest of the league to follow. “ People are like, ‘Oh man, everybody’s going to be in 13 next year because that’s the way the league goes, ’” Stafford said, via Rams Wire . “ And I’m like, ‘Well, they better have four guys that can all do everything.’ And that’s what we have. We’re so lucky in the room. People talk about it as just the X’s on the field, but it’s like, these guys are really talented players that can block at the point of attack, they can catch the ball intermediate, down the field, the whole thing. And they’re smart enough to go learn all these positions and do all these things and that takes a lot. ” Stafford added that HC Sean McVay pivoted after WR Puka Nacua and WR TuTu Atwell went down with injuries last season and the team started employing more heavy approaches. “ So, yes, we did pivot because we probably had zero snaps of 13 personnel in training camp, ” Stafford said. “ Puka gets hurt and Tutu gets hurt on maybe the 10th play of the game. We’ve got like Davante, Konata and I don’t even know if J-Whitt was up but we just didn’t have that many receivers available at that point so it was like, ‘OK, let’s have a plan if something does happen here and sure enough, we just kind of went into it, we liked the way it dictated the terms a little bit as far as, ‘Hey, this is what we’re going to get from their defense.’ And sometimes it was, ‘We don’t know what we’re going to get. We might get nickel, we might get penny, we might get base, whatever you want to call it.’ But we had plans for all of that and how we wanted to go attack it. As we move forward, there’s always a chess match go…