Is there any 49er that is more over-rated than Delanie Walker?

Only a couple subjects I want to touch in this thread and then I'm staying out of this thread.

1- Delanie in fact does create mismatches against lbs because his speed and its harder to tackle someone with a lower center of gravity, and cb's because his strength.
2 he blocks well for the same reason that its hard for lbs to tackle him, low man always wins.
3 we have a team full of undersized players, delanie, kyle, kendall to name a couple.
4 he has more value then just at TE.
5 in no way is he irreplaceable, but what makes you think if we drafted a TE, Delanie is the one we would be replaced you've already mentioned the other TEs aren't very good either.

He wasn't a big target this season because he was being used for blocking more then receiving, same with vernon, the main reason he was receiving more in the first half of the season was vernon didn't have the playbook down. After vernon had it down dealanie was back to blocking for the most part until his jaw was broken. And that's another thing that was pointed out also was if he really had no value to the team harbaugh & co would have placed him on the IR to open up space but they didn't. Just a few simple things.

As soon as a guy misses a bunch of games from injury we get the "overrated" threads. Like clockwork on this forum.

Originally posted by VA49er:
Kaepernick. He hasn't even thrown an NFL pass and people drool all over him.

Uhm...He threw a pretty good pass against tampa that happened to break Morgan's leg. Lol. He threw a handful in that game.

It's hard to call someone overrated when there's no evidence showing that he's bad either. The hype with him is mostly in what improvements he may have made during the course of the year. We know he's got a strong arm and if he makes better decisions he could be a decent quarterback. The sample size is too small to really fairly judge him either way.

Originally posted by djfullshred:
As soon as a guy misses a bunch of games from injury we get the "overrated" threads. Like clockwork on this forum.

This has nothing to do with his injury, it was obvious that he's a better option than Justin Peele in terms of blocking, but as far as offensive production, 49ers didn't really miss anything because he didn't have a single reception for the 6 or 7 games prior to that anyways. He was in for 52% of the offensive snaps on the season, a lot of the time he was blocking, but not all of it, you figure that a guy would be able to make some more catches but bottomline, he's not a major asset in the end-zone, as more and more teams are going bigger to be able to throw it up and get touchdown's, a 6 foot tight-end really isn't a big plus when trying to score.


He's a great blocker and he can do a lot of things well, but that's more of an argument for him to stay on as the #3 tight-end where he would present great value, than the #2 position which should generate more overall production considering how often the #2 TE is out on the field in this offense.

I wouldn't mind a bigger tightend who can block and catch, but I like DW. The question is Bynham-to one demensional (sp?), We do need a big TE so that he presents a big target that the QB finds harder to miss.

If we can find a Joey Graham that would be nice but last I checked they dont grow on trees. Also using a high pick on a TE would not be a good idea because we have more pressing needs.

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:

Originally posted by mug0mug:
And remember he was drafted in the 6th round. Not much was expected of him and he's played well enough to compete for the #1 TE spot on some teams, along with having great versatility. Everyone would rather have Gronkowski, but you can't have the best player in the league at every position. I'd love to improve every position, but you have to have priorities and TE isn't one of'em with some much greater needs elsewhere.

On what team does a 6 foot guy compete for the #1 tight-end spot? Talk about delusional.

I said he'd played well enough to compete on some teams, not that he'd be a starter if he weren't a Niner. Yea, he's short to be a starting TE, but he plays at least nearly as well as a few starting TE's. But he's not our #1 TE, so I don't know what you expect. He's better than most team's #2 TE's, particularly considering his other contributions.

He does his job well, not amazingly, but well, and we have other positions with players who are not performing well, so I don't understand how you can be so flabbergasted when people don't want to use our first round pick on a #2 TE so we can cut or demote Delanie Walker.

I tend to agree with the OP. Delanie is overrated by Niners fans. He's a good FB player, like Mrob was a good football player, but he's easily replaced and as easily upgraded imo.

With the #'s that Vernon Davis puts up, Delanie should have more impressive stats than he does.

Originally posted by susweel:
If we can find a Joey Graham that would be nice but last I checked they dont grow on trees. Also using a high pick on a TE would not be a good idea because we have more pressing needs.

Last time I checked he was playing for the Toronto Raptors.

Considering how much we use tight ends I say keep Walker and maybe draft one in the later rounds. I wouldnt draft one with the first round pick unless you can pick up that kid from Stanford. For the stat freaks Walker brings a lot to the table which you wont find on paper. Your right he isnt great at anything he does, but he is good at most things he does. We have far more pressing needs at WR then we do at tight end.

Originally posted by WINiner:
I tend to agree with the OP. Delanie is overrated by Niners fans. He's a good FB player, like Mrob was a good football player, but he's easily replaced and as easily upgraded imo.

With the #'s that Vernon Davis puts up, Delanie should have more impressive stats than he does.

With the double-teams that VD get's, Delanie should have more impressive stats. The fact THAT VD get's double-teamed is one reason to look at upgrading the position. If you have VD out on the field and a guy like Fleener or even Ladarius Green, realistically there's no way in hell you can double-team VD without getting burnt. You can't defend one of those big TE's with just a safety the way you can defend Delanie because he's all of 6 feet tall, the s**t just doesn't work.

Originally posted by overthemiddle:
Considering how much we use tight ends I say keep Walker and maybe draft one in the later rounds. I wouldnt draft one with the first round pick unless you can pick up that kid from Stanford. For the stat freaks Walker brings a lot to the table which you wont find on paper. Your right he isnt great at anything he does, but he is good at most things he does. We have far more pressing needs at WR then we do at tight end.

Meh, if the guy at TE is a better red-zone threat than the WR, what's the difference? Alex seems much more comfortable throwing to TE's and those awfully high lobs he makes sometimes might actually have a chance of being caught by someone who's 6'5"-6'6" instead of the average 6 foot receiver the 49ers have.

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:

Originally posted by overthemiddle:
Considering how much we use tight ends I say keep Walker and maybe draft one in the later rounds. I wouldnt draft one with the first round pick unless you can pick up that kid from Stanford. For the stat freaks Walker brings a lot to the table which you wont find on paper. Your right he isnt great at anything he does, but he is good at most things he does. We have far more pressing needs at WR then we do at tight end.

Meh, if the guy at TE is a better red-zone threat than the WR, what's the difference? Alex seems much more comfortable throwing to TE's and those awfully high lobs he makes sometimes might actually have a chance of being caught by someone who's 6'5"-6'6" instead of the average 6 foot receiver the 49ers have.

I have no problem with what your saying only I wouldnt use a first round pick unless it was that kid from Stanford (sorry, forget his name). I dont think the other TEs in the draft are worthy of a first round pick.

Originally posted by overthemiddle:
I have no problem with what your saying only I wouldnt use a first round pick unless it was that kid from Stanford (sorry, forget his name). I dont think the other TEs in the draft are worthy of a first round pick.

I'd be interested in Fleener in the 1st, Green in the 2nd(he was further down the draft boards until recently and will climb more after the combine), Nick Provo of Syracuse in the 4th or Chase Ford of Miami in the 5th or 6th round.


All of those guys have decent physical size and are quality receiving threats, Fleener obviously is the most ready to contribute.

heres another reason. he is probably the best 2nd tight end in the league and probably even better than some starters.