Grade Trent Baalke's performance so far. Also a Trent Baalke appreciation thread

Originally posted by amigoj49:
Trent is the MAN! He has balls made out of steel!... where as Scott was a little soft.

McCloughan would have never traded up two slots to take Davis and probably would have settled for Bulaga, a future guard, imo. Nor would he have selected Iupati at 17, or traded for Ginn Jr.

This draft does NOT have McCloughan's fingerprints on it at all despite what many had suggested it would prior to the draft. Baalke is single handedly sculpting this team in Singletary's image.

Bravo!!!

I like Baalke's performance so far because of his move in the first round. He knew the potential of another team jumping ahead of the Niners to get Davis. He had the player in mind that he wanted and he went and go him. I personally like trades during the draft. So Baalke got Davis and Iupati. The biggest problem for the Niners was addressed in the first round. Now Solarai, Brown and co have the materials to make up a dynamite Oline - Starters - Staley, Iupati, Heittmann, Rachal/Baas, Davis. Backups Sims at LT, Baas/Wragge/Snyder at Guard and Center, Boone at RT. I think we will finally be able to say goodbye to Wallace

Second he thoroughly addressed the return game with Ginn, Vann, and Williams. The return game alone would have given us two more wins last year. So this issue is addressed thoroughly.

Third, he got us a Strong Safety with Mays. The great question is can Mays be coached to address his weaknesses - tackling, and coverage, and ball awareness? If so we have the steal of the draft. If not then we simply have an above average athelete to replace Lewis if he has another concussion, and we have a super ST player with his speed.

Fourth - It would appear that we are going to get the biggest, meanest, most powerful running team that is available. This area will also determine what our Fullback system will look like as well. If Blount or Dixon can catch we may have our pass catching powerful Fullback ala Rathman. So it will be interesting to see what happens to Coffee and Robinson in this years training camp.

Pass rush was addressed by Travis LaBoy. So we will now see if Brooks, Lawson, Haralson, LaBoy, Briggs, and Burnett can improve and give us a consistent pass rush as well as the dynamism that they showed last year with forced fumbles.

The area that did not seem to be addressed was CB. So it will be interesting to see if Baalke can address this arena between now and TC. We still have Bly and Harris in the wings and there will be lots of veterans that will be cut soon. Besides we have a lot of RBs that we might be able to trade for CBs. This will be an interesting side of Baalke that we may see that Scotty Mc did not show, and that would be a willingness to trade for different players. I hope we will see the creativity that was used to get Ginn.

So I like what I have seen with Baalke so far. Rate the draft A-. Would have been A+ if we had gotten a CB/NT during the draft.

Originally posted by vermonator:

Originally posted by amigoj49:
Trent is the MAN! He has balls made out of steel!... where as Scott was a little soft.

McCloughan would have never traded up two slots to take Davis and probably would have settled for Bulaga, a future guard, imo. Nor would he have selected Iupati at 17, or traded for Ginn Jr.

This draft does NOT have McCloughan's fingerprints on it at all despite what many had suggested it would prior to the draft. Baalke is single handedly sculpting this team in Singletary's image.

Bravo!!!

This claim is chalk full of "Scot hating" opinion and lacks 100% fact. No one can honestly say what Scot would or would not have done, and just how much success or lack thereof (come 3-4 years from now) from this class can be attributed to Scot for helping shape the board.

It is just as easy to speculate that aside from trading up a couple slots for Davis, that all Trent did was pick the highest rated guys on the board that Scot had ranked. Perhaps that isn't the case, or perhaps Trent made a few or even quite few changes. At the end of the day, the answer to how Scot would have done will never be answered.

Originally posted by vermonator:

Originally posted by amigoj49:
Trent is the MAN! He has balls made out of steel!... where as Scott was a little soft.

McCloughan would have never traded up two slots to take Davis and probably would have settled for Bulaga, a future guard, imo. Nor would he have selected Iupati at 17, or traded for Ginn Jr.

This draft does [b]NOT have McCloughan's fingerprints on it[/b] at all despite what many had suggested it would prior to the draft. Baalke is single handedly sculpting this team in Singletary's image.

Bravo!!!

He had a very large part in construction our board. We wont know what a Baalke board and draft will look like until next years draft.

Originally posted by Ninefan56:
I like Baalke's performance so far because of his move in the first round. He knew the potential of another team jumping ahead of the Niners to get Davis. He had the player in mind that he wanted and he went and go him. I personally like trades during the draft. So Baalke got Davis and Iupati. The biggest problem for the Niners was addressed in the first round. Now Solarai, Brown and co have the materials to make up a dynamite Oline - Starters - Staley, Iupati, Heittmann, Rachal/Baas, Davis. Backups Sims at LT, Baas/Wragge/Snyder at Guard and Center, Boone at RT. I think we will finally be able to say goodbye to Wallace

Second he thoroughly addressed the return game with Ginn, Vann, and Williams. The return game alone would have given us two more wins last year. So this issue is addressed thoroughly.

Third, he got us a Strong Safety with Mays. The great question is can Mays be coached to address his weaknesses - tackling, and coverage, and ball awareness? If so we have the steal of the draft. If not then we simply have an above average athelete to replace Lewis if he has another concussion, and we have a super ST player with his speed.

Fourth - It would appear that we are going to get the biggest, meanest, most powerful running team that is available. This area will also determine what our Fullback system will look like as well. If Blount or Dixon can catch we may have our pass catching powerful Fullback ala Rathman. So it will be interesting to see what happens to Coffee and Robinson in this years training camp.

Pass rush was addressed by Travis LaBoy. So we will now see if Brooks, Lawson, Haralson, LaBoy, Briggs, and Burnett can improve and give us a consistent pass rush as well as the dynamism that they showed last year with forced fumbles.

The area that did not seem to be addressed was CB. So it will be interesting to see if Baalke can address this arena between now and TC. We still have Bly and Harris in the wings and there will be lots of veterans that will be cut soon. Besides we have a lot of RBs that we might be able to trade for CBs. This will be an interesting side of Baalke that we may see that Scotty Mc did not show, and that would be a willingness to trade for different players. I hope we will see the creativity that was used to get Ginn.

So I like what I have seen with Baalke so far. Rate the draft A-. Would have been A+ if we had gotten a CB/NT during the draft.

To address the NT and CB arguments:

The 49ers currently have 4 defensive players that can play the NT position: Franklin, RJF, Sopoaga, and Balmer. The 49ers coaching staff firmly believe that RJF can make the adjustment to the NT position - he saw extensive time there during OTAs.

We also have Khalif Mitchell on the practice squad. With the 4th and 5th round draft picks missing, would it really be a problem if the 49ers deemed that they were no good NT candidates in the 6th or 7th rounds to take a flyer on? I think not.

As for the CB argument, a team will improve their pass defense when they improve their pass rush. If Lawson, Haralson, and Brooks (along with some assistance with LaBoy) can kick it up a notch, you'll see our secondary look VERY good. Improve the pass rush, improve the pass defense.

From everything I've seen Singletary was in charge of this draft. I'm not sure if I should give him any credit outside of the addition of Ted Ginn.

I can't give Baalke a ton of credit for the draft as the board was 95% complete and it certainly appears like Singletary had a monster influence in this draft.

I do like what he has done in picking up Ginn for a 5th and having the balls to move up to get their man at the #1 position of need while turning right around and getting back our 4th (in 2011) for moving up. If he makes some additional moves come FA we may have something special on our hands. He seems aggressive and has a vision so let's give him another year.

As far as the draft grade, I have it a B and that, by far, has been my best Niner grade as most were in the C, C- range and they proved as such. After ALL of these years, we have still not address a NT or every down pass rushing OLB high in the draft and for that, we may get burned...just hope we make it through the season w/o any key injuries esp. to NT.

But we did address a ton of our needs and got top value at each one of those major need positions and added some depth and serious competition!!!

Should have drafted another pass rusher, cb and speed back.

I love waht him and coach sing are doing. They are on the same page and have the same goals. I believe that the being on the same page will benefit this franchise for the next five plus years if they are allowed to stay together.

He has done a real solid job. I havent too many complaints about Baalke. I say he deserves another year for sure

I got your back Trent ...us BSU Alumni have to stick together

A-/B+

I truly believe that we overvalued Anthony Davis a bit by taking a RT with character and weight issues at number 11 (sacrificing a 4th rounder in addition to our #13). There were many solid tackle prospects who fell to the late second and beyond without these issues. While Davis has the upside to be the best tackle in this draft, he also has the most potential to be a monumental bust.

I also believe that Mike Iupati, while a mauling run-blocker is too one dimensional to be drafted as high as he was (for an OG). He may be a top 10 pick as a runblocker, but in terms of pass blocking I would grade him no higher than a third round pick. Pass blocking has been a major issue for our team and we could've gotten very quality and balanced run/pass blocking guards in the third or late second (see: Asomoah).

Taylor Mays is a solid value and anytime you can get that exciting and athletic of a player in the 2nd round you can never fault the GM for making that pick. Consider him our jersey sales pick.

Navarro Bowman, though he is a surprisingly poor fit for our system, he presented great value and is a mid-early 2nd round (possibly late 1st round) talent.

Kyle Williams may be the best "steal at WR in this draft (behind Carlton Mitchell for the Browns). He is a complete player with solid hands, elite speed, YAC ability, and the unique quickness you look for in a slot receiver. He is the one type of player our WR core has been sorely missing.

Anthony Dixon, similar to Kyle Williams presented tremendous value at a need position. We have sorely been missing a short yardage running back, and though McCloughan reached for Coffee in the 3rd round last year, the position was never truly addressed. Dixon is every bit as good as Auburn runningback Ben Tate who went in the 2nd round.

[ Edited by 49oz2superbowl on Apr 27, 2010 at 09:07:28 ]

Hey Command, Sus, good to see your opinions re: draft. With all our holes, 2 OLs, S, PR/KR, solid backup QB, OLB, backup RBs, CB, NT, i am incredibly excited by our draft, and think that baalke(or bigMike/ maybe both) did a splendid job. If someone would have told me pre draft that after draft and trades we would have but two holes left, i would have said "Impossible". Yet that is what it appears on paper. My answer to the legitimate comments that it is too bad we didn't get a CB and NT, even far down in draft, is that we literally took giant steps with backup qB, Return men, OLs(stellar), an OLB, S, backup RBs, even a WR. It is just hard to imagine The "baalke trust" doing better than they did. It would have been virtually impossible to add quality NT and CB in addition to what we have withour taking away some of the guys we added.

Yes, i admit to liking the OL picks, because that is what i said i thot we would do pre draft, so yeah, i am a bit jaded. But we have avoided drafting for OL for so long (exception of staley 1st rd), that we desperately needed 2 starting OLs...and it seems that not that many fans object...tho predraft there was serious sentiment against it. And yes, it would have been nice to pick up a NT/DT/DE and also a CB. But we did fill the other slots, the first 3 with pure quality, the backup QB excellent, the PR/KR excellent, the S excellent(will need a big dose of bigMike), and then the rest are later picks and hard to gauge now. But overall, it is hard to look at this draft/FA timeframe and come away with anything other than we did GREAT!.

Obviously for this to be proven remains to be seen. And yes, we may have a head case/poor tackler in Mays. But overall, re-looking at this quantum leap in talent just blows me away. Ginn for a 5th? who would ever have thot that? And getting one of the top 3 OTs did require a trade up as Fins had AD in their sites. Drafting Iupati next , 6 slots later took real cojones. When Mays was picked, there was still great talent on the board. Time will tell if he was as good as he looked on film vs being a poor tackler. (His highlight hits looked a lot like, well...Lott). I just can't imagine us doing better than we did, and some rate us as 19th best in draft, which i think is silly. The 2 OL picks in 1st had been done only twice before. In our case it believe it was the one thing that really, truly had to be done. I am still amazed baalke actually did it.

Sure a CB and NT would have been nice. But wow, we filled up everything else, and 4 or 5 slots(incl FA) were superior talent. Usually if we get 1 good guy, it has been an ok draft. If we got two, i was excited. But to end up with the talent we did, was superb, way beyond belief. If folks want to criticize this draft, that's okay. Somebody always thinks things could have been better. But i believe when looking at this draft 2 yrs downstream, it will compare with some of Walsh's good ones.

Wouldn't it be nice if Balmer finally rounded up into a #1 pick this yr? If so, this would have to rate as one of our best yrs in the last 12 or so. We aren't like some teams that go into draft needing just one OL, or CB or NT or WR to make a team whole...a SB contender, like perennials Indy, Pats, Pitts, NO, ATL, even cowboys. We went in with lots of 2nd stringers starting, esp on OL. Looking at the entireity of what we did has to rate an A for me. For others, obviously not, but no one can say this draft didn't markedly improve our team.

It's not done yet, however, as Adalius, Henderson, Faneca, and a handful of others are still out there. Conceivably one of those guys would make this draft/FA even better, altho all have slipped some from previous yrs. Still, they could find a slot here very easily.

Originally posted by KALI-KING:

Originally posted by Hawaii49erfan:
B- good players but didnt like giving up our 4th rounder for davis who would have been there at 13 and probably at 17.

I guess were no longer a BPA team anymore.

would he have been there, I heard the cowboys were thinking of moving up.

How fantastic would Baalke be, if the Cowboys traded up ahead of us and grabbed Anthony Davis (the player we coveted)?

If Davis went on to be the starting LT for Dallas and a Pro-Bowl player for them, how wonderful would Baalke be then?

Some scouts compare Davis to Eric Williams, a Hall-of-Fame caliber player.
You can't stick your head up your ass thinking about "value" when the player you covet disappears right in front of your eyes.

If Okung was the player we moved up for, nobody would be complaining. I think its highly likely Davis was a higher rated player then even Okung on the 49ers board. We got the player we coveted, who has enormous talent, at a position of dire need. Anthony Davis isn't some fat kid "project". He can REALLY play ball; thank God he had that idiot quarterback making him look bad last year.