Jonathan Cyprien?

I haven't seen him play but he had a great senior bowl week. Small school safety but peeps I follow on twitter say he can ball.

Here is an article about him and his Senior Bowl performance:

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2013/01/fius_jonathan_cyprien_has_gain.html

Not necessarily a sleeper pick anymore after his performance in Mobile.

I totally get wanting to upgrade Whitner, but it's easy to forget that we were the 4th best passing defense in the league last year. I mean, that's pretty damn good for an entire regular season. IMO, the entire defense (especially our defensive front/pass rush) wore down towards the end of the year and particularly in the playoffs, so it wasn't just an issue with our secondary.

IMO, high-quality depth is needed everywhere on this defense, but if I had to use a high pick (or two), it would be on the defensive front and not at the safety position, especially if we re-sign Goldson. If we don't re-sign Goldson (and/or if we release Whitner), that's obviously another story. Guys like Cyprien, Matt Elam and even a trade-up for Kenny Vaccaro would then be the obvious 1st round targets.

But given the fact that we came up just 3 points short of a SB win, I don't see major changes to the starting roles on either side of the ball. A few breaks here and there and we're picking 32nd. That's how good this team is/was and that can be easy to forget when you lose the last game of the year.

He looks like he was on a team that could not tackle/over-pursued every play. He cleaned up some messes, but I see him missing some tackles in these videos. Nobody's perfect, but I'm not 100% sold on him from these videos.

Whitner is out of contract next year so we need to draft a replacement bwcause resigning would be a fail.

Originally posted by eonblue:
Whitner is out of contract next year so we need to draft a replacement bwcause resigning would be a fail.

Definitely agree with this. The question is, what round do you draft his replacement? And, what we don't know is how much confidence (if any) do they have in Trenton Robinson as a potential replacement. Whether or not they use a high pick on a safety pretty much answers the 2nd question.

Originally posted by GhostofFredDean74:

Originally posted by eonblue:
Whitner is out of contract next year so we need to draft a replacement bwcause resigning would be a fail.

Definitely agree with this. The question is, what round do you draft his replacement? And, what we don't know is how much confidence (if any) do they have in Trenton Robinson as a potential replacement. Whether or not they use a high pick on a safety pretty much answers the 2nd question.

Arent they pretty high on Spillman as well? Or is he more of a FS than a SS?

Originally posted by valrod33:

Originally posted by GhostofFredDean74:

Originally posted by eonblue:
Whitner is out of contract next year so we need to draft a replacement bwcause resigning would be a fail.

Definitely agree with this. The question is, what round do you draft his replacement? And, what we don't know is how much confidence (if any) do they have in Trenton Robinson as a potential replacement. Whether or not they use a high pick on a safety pretty much answers the 2nd question.

Arent they pretty high on Spillman as well? Or is he more of a FS than a SS?

Spillman is definitely more of a FS, and they love his special teams ability. Not sure how they feel about him as a starting FS though since he's almost never on the field.

Originally posted by GhostofFredDean74:
I totally get wanting to upgrade Whitner, but it's easy to forget that we were the 4th best passing defense in the league last year. I mean, that's pretty damn good for an entire regular season. IMO, the entire defense (especially our defensive front/pass rush) wore down towards the end of the year and particularly in the playoffs, so it wasn't just an issue with our secondary.

IMO, high-quality depth is needed everywhere on this defense, but if I had to use a high pick (or two), it would be on the defensive front and not at the safety position, especially if we re-sign Goldson. If we don't re-sign Goldson (and/or if we release Whitner), that's obviously another story. Guys like Cyprien, Matt Elam and even a trade-up for Kenny Vaccaro would then be the obvious 1st round targets.

But given the fact that we came up just 3 points short of a SB win, I don't see major changes to the starting roles on either side of the ball. A few breaks here and there and we're picking 32nd. That's how good this team is/was and that can be easy to forget when you lose the last game of the year.

I totally agree. The secondary was great until the pass rush died down. Hopefully we can find a saety in the mid rounds like we dd Goldson.

Originally posted by ishkabibel:
I totally agree. The secondary was great until the pass rush died down. Hopefully we can find a saety in the mid rounds like we dd Goldson.

I agree as well. Remember that our pass D wasn't an issue until J Smith went out in New England. If we don't resign Goldson, I'm all for taking Cyprien or a similar player in the 1st. If we do resign Goldson, I don't see us taking a safety until the 2nd or 3rd. We need DL depth more than anything on this team.

WalterFootball mock draft has the Niners taking Cyprien with their first pick. I could imagine them doing this and then bunching some picks to move up higher in the second round to take Johnathan Jenkins (6'4", 360 lbs.) for a classic NT.

Originally posted by GhostofFredDean74:
I totally get wanting to upgrade Whitner, but it's easy to forget that we were the 4th best passing defense in the league last year. I mean, that's pretty damn good for an entire regular season. IMO, the entire defense (especially our defensive front/pass rush) wore down towards the end of the year and particularly in the playoffs, so it wasn't just an issue with our secondary.

IMO, high-quality depth is needed everywhere on this defense, but if I had to use a high pick (or two), it would be on the defensive front and not at the safety position, especially if we re-sign Goldson. If we don't re-sign Goldson (and/or if we release Whitner), that's obviously another story. Guys like Cyprien, Matt Elam and even a trade-up for Kenny Vaccaro would then be the obvious 1st round targets.

But given the fact that we came up just 5 points short of a SB win, I don't see major changes to the starting roles on either side of the ball. A few breaks here and there and we're picking 32nd. That's how good this team is/was and that can be easy to forget when you lose the last game of the year.

Fixed it for yah.