I've seen many say our drafts have been crap, and if you ONLY looked at the big whiffs in particular in a couple of our classes on early picks, you'd think "Good God, they suck at drafting..." But analyzing our hit rate versus other teams, ours is actually significantly better than I expected. I estimate we drafted contributors on at least 16/40 picks over the past 5 years (40% hit rate). Looking at our division foes, we have done significantly better than Seattle and LA (although they've gotten talent to stay competitive in other ways -- more on that later). The strange thing is just that the 49ers are somehow managing to do it very backwards, hitting on tons of late picks and UDFAs more than their picks in the first four rounds.
These are the ones I qualified as "hits" or "contributors" in my opinion:
OL Jaylon Moore (5th)
CB Deommodore Lenoir (5th)
S Talanoa Hufanga (5th)
RB Elijah Mitchell (6th)
WR Brandon Aiyuk (1st)
TE Charlie Woener (6th)
DE Nick Bosa (1st)
WR Deebo Samuel (2nd)
P Mitch Wishnowsky (4th)
LB Dre Greenlaw (5th)
TE Kaden Smith (6th) - Not with the team, but lost from PS to NYG where he's started.
OT Mike McGlinchey (1st)
LB Fred Warner (3rd)
S/LB Marcell Harris (6th)
TE George Kittle (5th)
DT DJ Jones (6th)
On average, we have added at least 1 Pro Bowler per year in the draft (Warner, Kittle, Bosa, and Samuel likely makes it this year if healthy)
THE REAL ISSUE: TALENT RETENTION & OVERALL RISK MANAGEMENT IN PERSONNEL DECISIONS
First off, plain and simple, we have not found a way to keep our best players/leaders here (Buckner and Sanders, for example). This problem has been compounded by the fact that the team has been absolutely horrific at managing their risk, relying on players with injury histories at STARTING POSITIONS, such as Jimmy G, Verrett, Ward, Tartt, Mostert, Ford, K'Waun Williams, Aziz Al-Shaair, DJ Jones, Jeff Wilson, and Kentavius Street. We know that these players can do some good while on the field, but we pay them too much to miss as many games as they have. This level of risk -- essentially fielding half or more than half of an entire side of the ball's starters -- seems absolutely insane to me. It's not like those guys I mentioned suddenly had a slew of injuries just recently. They've been known injury prone guys for years, some even dating back to college.
PROBLEM IDENTIFIED, SO WHAT'S THE ANSWER?: SIGNIFICANT ROSTER SHAKE-UP
The team absolutely must change its approach in 2022, and I'd like to see significant roster turnover and a fresh start with as many new faces replacing aging, injury prone players who are set to become UFAs in 2022. Below, the bold are the FAs I'd consider keeping for the right price.
49ERS 2022 FREE AGENTS
C Jake Brendel
CB Jason Verrett
CB K'Waun Williams
CB Josh Norman
CB Dre Kirkpatrick
CB Dontae Johnson
DE Arden Key
DE Jordan Willis
DT D.J. Jones
DT Maurice Hurst
DT Kentavius Street
DT Kevin Givens
LB Marcell Harris
LB Azeez Al-Shaair
LB Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles
LG Laken Tomlinson
RB Raheem Mostert
RB Jeff Wilson
RB Trenton Cannon
RB JaMycal Hasty
RG Tom Compton
RG Daniel Brunskill
S Jaquiski Tartt
S Tavon Wilson
S Tarvarius Moore
S Kai Nacua
TE Ross Dwelley
WR Mohamed Sanu
WR Travis Benjamin
WR Trent Sherfield
WR Jauan Jennings
WR Richie James
NON-FREE AGENTS THAT I'D CUT OR TRADE (IF POSSIBLE) WHOSE CAP IMPACT WOULD ALLOW IT
QB Jimmy Garoppolo - Obvious reasons, big contract and not the future
DE Samson Ebukam - Don't think he's fitting as well as they thought he would. Might be expendable with Omenihu joining us.
S Jimmie Ward - Post June 1st cut/trade
DE Dee Ford - Post June 1st cut
Summary/Bottom Line:
The 49ers have completely mismanaged their resources. They've passed too often on adding star talent via trades (but had no issues trading three 1sts and more for a raw rookie QB), and they've spent tons of money on players with injury histories, consistently finishing among league leaders in players on IR/salary cap percentage on IR. And even in the draft where they've actually done better than people think, they've spent resources on a lot more players with medical concerns than you'd like. The bottom line is that their philosophy needs to change. If you have a superstar that's a leader, KEEP THEM. Kittle, Warner, and Trent are good examples. They failed with Buck. So, quit with the "Moneyball" crap, and put more emphasis on toughness and reliability, which Buckner was a perfect model of. Otherwise, we're going to continue to see the majority of our starters stretchered off or carted off the field as we're yet again forced to field a pre-season style roster.
[ Edited by OnTheClock on Dec 25, 2021 at 8:55 PM ]
