What Is Baalke's Preoccupation With 7th Round Draft Choices?

wheel n deal is the name of the game

This is totally bogus... where were these sweetheart deals for backup OLBs when we were desperate to find one last year.

Originally posted by ninergold:
Maybe not Johnson, but I would have hoped that Haralson would have been worth more than a 7th. A guy that potentially starts has to be worth more than a 7th, but that said, it's good that they are getting something back.

Parys Haralson was originally drafted in the 5th round. We developed him into a starter and he played (well) for us for 7 years. Now, he'd lost his starter's position and appeared likely to fall to number 4 this year the way Lemonier was playing (and since he wasn't a key special teams contributer, he was likely to get cut). Since the average player only plays 4 years, it seems like we got great value out of Haralson. Why would a team give up more than what they did for a reserve on the wrong side of his peak years? In his best year he had 8 1/2 sacks, so you pretty much see his top end. So the Saints got a stop-gap, a guy who can fill in capably until their top line guys get back. And what did we give up? A player we were going to cut, because at his age, he wasn't worth his salary. These are the hard, cold facts of the NFL, and teams that don't get it end up like the Niners of 04-07. This team is thinking like a team that wants to stay on top for the next decade.

Did they "lose" this trade? Maybe. Did they "lose" the Johnson trade? Maybe that one too. And Colin Jones? Maybe. And Alex Smith? Okay, probably not. But the point is they're going to go in to next years draft, ONCE AGAIN, with the most picks of any one, and likely with 6 of the top 100 and the flexibility to move around the board to get exactly who they want.

Last year we got AJ Jenkins after waiting for our pick to come around. This year, we were able to move around aggressively and we got 4 guys who look like they're going to help immediately, and we've got 3 more "red-shirting" on IR/PUP. With the same flexibility next year, we'll be able to replace Brown, Rogers, Whitner, Goodwin, and almost certainly more as we rebuild a talented young nucleus around Colin and Aldon, and all the while, remain Super Bowl contenders!

This is not the time for whining, but for marveling at the brilliance of Harbaugh, Baalke, Maraag, and even Jed for putting this together. The way the organization is thinking I anticipate a sustained run of success a la the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I think he can deal some of these for 5th's an 4th's. He's asking and accepting way too low.

Originally posted by niteshade80:
I look at it like they are inputting place holders for future drafts, so they draft someone that they could make look good, so that they can trade for a future draft choice to potentially draft someone that could really be a surprise. I believe that the 49ers are seeing it that today's NFL, you really need to be able to explore younger players, because older players going for their second contract signs contracts that are much higher than rookies (with a rookie salary restriction in place, rookies only being able to make so much). I don't think its Baalke stacking up on 7th round choices, at least not the way that I see it, but a partial planning for the future and keeping the salary cap managed versus the nightmares that we faced in 1995-2002 seasons, that really took the team a better part of a decade to recover from in combination with bad coaching. I think in this approach, we at least have more opportunities at exploring younger players, and there is always the possibility of packaging a trade for a proven player that the 49ers organization know can help them become more competitive.

Nice post and makes a lot of sense, especially in planning for the future and managing/staying on top of the salary cap. In the nearer term, looking forward to the team taking whatever savings they're getting from some of these salaries being gone (Haralson, etc.) and extending Iupati to start and the others later (Kap, Aldon, etc.).

Originally posted by NCommand:

True. We could draft and develop a guy like Cam for a year and when healthy and producing we can trade him for a late 7th again...oh wait. Are we a farm club now? Kidding!

Sometimes those guys turn into a Dixon, Brown, miller, Brock, Ian Williams, Boone, Dobbs etc. that are worth keeping around.

The scouting debt is epic btw. How do we keep bringing in such great lower round talent?

because picks for someone who wont play is better than nothing. we can trade up and move around to get our guys in the draft and weve actually picked some good players in the late rounds lately

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:

I think he can deal some of these for 5th's an 4th's. He's asking and accepting way too low.

You got his office bugged? Seriously people, nobody is going to throw high picks at us for relatively unproven commodities. Any more than we would.

Originally posted by jreff22:

Originally posted by Pillbusta:
We are using the picks in 2014 for draft day positioning and or to pick up a developmental prospect like BJ Daniels

That makes sense but taking BJ for example. Why spend the time developing him to dump him for another 7th for instance? If we get better value I'm all for it, if its a lateral move

We traded Daniels for another 7th?

If that is the case, Baalke must figure we can a number of seventh round picks for a first round pick.

Our ifs may or may not be connected to reality.

I do know that my ifs are almost never have any thing to do with the real world.

Originally posted by 49erfanatic:
We seem to trade a lot of productive or high potential players for future 7th round draft choices. I don't understand it. In a stacked roster like ours, why do you want to collect a bunch of 7th round choices who don't have much chance of making the team next year, and give away players who are already playing above their draft round? Cam Johnson is the latest example. He was injured last year, and didn't show much, but he is obviously developing, and shows a lot of promise at this point. Even Vic Fangio said he is light years ahead of where he was last year. In my opinion, you can never have enough pass rushers, and I think he will be a good one. They thought enough of him to keep him on their original 53, but now you are banking on finding another player next year in the 7th who will be better than Cam Johnson. I think there is a low probability of that happening. The only reason Cam was a 7th in the first place was that teams worried about his sickle cell anemia issue. Otherwise, he would have been drafted much higher. He has proven that endurance is not a problem for him, so his value should have gone up. And he's only going to count as minimum salary on the cap. Not like Harylson, who was being paid more. In my opinion, if a guy is playing above his draft round, you don't trade him for a lower choice. But I've noticed this is a trend with our team. In this case. we dumped Johnson for Chris Harper, who at this point, is more unproven than Johnson, and some of the other receivers that we cut.

He couldn't get a 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, or 1st. Hence, the 7th round pick.

The team wanted Harper, which required us cutting someone. We found a way to trade Cam because he wasn't going to be active for games anyway. We couldve cut someone else and retained Cam, but it's not like Cam was going to get on the field anyway.

For all we know, they couldve had Harper ranked above Patton in the 4th. Or, he could be an ideal fit as an H-back. Celek isn't locking anything down as the #3 TE. I sort of think Baalke is fascinated by conditional picks. Cam will battle Werner for playing time, which could lead to a higher pick. Werner has been banged up and in impressive this far, so Cam has a real chance to play for Indy.

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
I think he can deal some of these for 5th's an 4th's. He's asking and accepting way too low.

I've felt that way lately, until I remember the Alex Smith trade

Baalke's shrewd when he knows he has the upper hand. Bet Indy called on Cam as we were making cuts and we realized that them or some other team would have claimed him after the last game. That game was both good and bad for us as far as his performance. I was happy and thought it would be great to have so much depth that we didn't last year. I guess we felt that him not dressing on game days and not seeing much of the field would cause him to go stale.

These guys we've been dealing recently have not been players that would have made any impact to garner nothing more realistic than later picks. I'm not happy to get such of the same late picks, but it's better than nothing...... And I guess that's the way it would have went down.

Truth is.... we are so deep that up and coming rookies down the depth chart have no chance at sniffing the field. We have 13 total picks after the trade for 2014.

Originally posted by loyal9er:
I've felt that way lately, until I remember the Alex Smith trade

Baalke's shrewd when he knows he has the upper hand. Bet Indy called on Cam as we were making cuts and we realized that them or some other team would have claimed him after the last game. That game was both good and bad for us as far as his performance. I was happy and thought it would be great to have so much depth that we didn't last year. I guess we felt that him not dressing on game days and not seeing much of the field would cause him to go stale.

These guys we've been dealing recently have not been players that would have made any impact to garner nothing more realistic than later picks. I'm not happy to get such of the same late picks, but it's better than nothing...... And I guess that's the way it would have went down.

Truth is.... we are so deep that up and coming rookies down the depth chart have no chance at sniffing the field. We have 13 total picks after the trade for 2014.

And you just know Baalke is going to find a way to turn some of those into additional 2015 picks...and it goes on and on and on.

7th round picks are common leverage to get players from teams who will be cut otherwise. Having that option is even more important when your team has a good record as waiver claims are done based on the previous years finishing position. If the 49ers don't trade for players they want then they will never be able to claim them.

BTW, did anybody look how many PS eligible QBs were waived? I counted 3 leaguewide. The NFL is QB desperate right now.