What this draft says about CURRENT roster

1. CB - staff must be pretty comfortable with Brock, Culliver, Wright, and Cook - more than fans understand.

2. WR - Staff has no belief in need for in big bodied or pure speed receivers. Despite Boldin showing the effectiveness of a big body working the inside and competing for the ball, 49ers continue to draft 6 foot, 200 lb middle speed guys. If 49ers had a great scheme that broke those guys open I would get it, but they don't.

3. OL - Iupati not expected back - maybe just too expensive for the marginal gain in ability at guard. Despite 3 year contract extension, staff not in love with Kilgore as long term answer. Looney not impressing.

4. DL - must be deep, no selections here. They must really like what they are seeing from Tank, Dial, and Le Monier (sp?).

5. RB - Needed top flight insurance for Lattimore being feature back. Need some burst and power to replace Gore's running. Nobody like to hear it, but Gore is clearly no longer running with the violence, power, or burst he had - who would after 10,000 hard yards in the NFL.

6. LB - Surprised they spent more resources on ILB than OLB with Aldon Smith being in trouble. Wilhoite did pretty well filling in at ILB. Suspect some of these picks are special teams needs.

Nice analysis

Terrible analysis.

This front office believes in competition at every position. This is a solid run first team so the WR position is a lesser priority than O - line and RB.

Originally posted by Giedi:
This front office believes in competition at every position. This is a solid run first team so the WR position is a lesser priority than O - line and RB.

This has pretty much been the M.O. of this team since day one. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they draft another running back next season. They have done it for six years straight. In terms of the big body receiver, they got a guy that has proven he can match up with physical receivers in Stevie Johnson and added a speed receiver, so I'm not sure if I understand the idea that the staff doesn't see the need for speed guys. After trading for Johnson, this roster is kind of full. I would've preferred one more speed guy, but there is always next year. Brandon Lloyd is also in the mix as well.

The drafting of offensive lineman can be looked at as a replacement for Iupati. We also need to rebuild our depth if Kilgore does start at center. They also need to push Snyder off the roster. He isn't getting any better and we can likely get his production at 1/3 of the price from a rookie.

I think the cb picks are simply about numbers. If you draft a guy in the 2nd or 3rd, he has something like a 50% chance of being good. Getting three guys in the 5th and 6th probably gives you about 65% of at least one of them being just as good. Numbers are made up in the absolute sense, but they are probably accurate in the relative sense.

Lemonier is an OLB. Both Lemonier and Skuta could be competent starters. I like Wilhoite as a backup, but as a starter he is by far the weakest link on the defense. The same is true of Kilgore to a lesser extent.

TJE and Williams are the young guys who have impressed the most on the DL. Don't know about Tank or Dial yet. Any DL drafted would have to beat out Dial and Dobbs in order to make the roster, which is no easy task for anyone but a first or second day pick.

Most people wanted a top down draft, ie draft a few impact players at positions of need, instead they had a bottom up draft. This draft will essentially push every mediocre backup off the roster or at least gives them heavy competition.

I expect MR duck passes Lloyd to be cut and finally Looney that guy has been terrible in preseason games against backups also LMJ... Bruce Ellington looks like our new returner imo

I do not believe that you can use the draft to suggest favor or disappointment in any players currently on the roster. I do believe you can take FA/draft together and gain hints at certain position groups.

In the offseason we have upgraded the talent at every position on our offense save te and some may even argue that Millard will play some te so that group as well. We also added a lot to our defensive back field. The team has focused on the offensive line adding 3 players to that position group who were 3rd round or higher prospects.

I don't think Aldon is as much a concern to the team as the fans and media think he is. Skuta and Lemon are excellent backups. We are pretty stacked at olb really.

I think this draft will result in really filling in some of the cracks in our roster, while providing for the future. The Niners more than any other team, though some have started to follow suite a little bit, are taking advantage of stashing injured talent on IR. Just think of how many guys we had on IR or some sort of injury list last season. We keep damn near another practice squad on ir/pup/non football/whatever injury list knowing they will be there before the season even starts.

Iron sharpens Iron and this draft does that.

It'd be foolish for a run-power team to go into 2014 with question marks at RB and the interior O-line. That's what this draft gives us now, and also moving forward.

Originally posted by LifelongNiner:

This has pretty much been the M.O. of this team since day one. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they draft another running back next season. They have done it for six years straight. In terms of the big body receiver, they got a guy that has proven he can match up with physical receivers in Stevie Johnson and added a speed receiver, so I'm not sure if I understand the idea that the staff doesn't see the need for speed guys. After trading for Johnson, this roster is kind of full. I would've preferred one more speed guy, but there is always next year. Brandon Lloyd is also in the mix as well.

The drafting of offensive lineman can be looked at as a replacement for Iupati. We also need to rebuild our depth if Kilgore does start at center. They also need to push Snyder off the roster. He isn't getting any better and we can likely get his production at 1/3 of the price from a rookie.

Regarding speed guys. I have high hopes for Chuck Jacobs and Devon wylie. So I think we had speed guys already on the team before the draft started. The stevie johnson trade does stretch the field horizontally, and will loosen the box for gore and company to find some running room. But speed is really where I think this offense becomes very explosive and efficient because of Colin's unique talents. Bjt keep in mind that Rice got behind DB's a lot of times despite a lack of deep speed so I'm hopeful Stevie adds that dimension to this offense despite his supposed lack of deep speed.

As for RB's and O-linemen, this is the heart of the Harbaugh offense. I agree with you that they will continue to draft RB's and O-linemen every year whether we have depth or not. It keeps the all important play pass viable for this offense, and it protects the QB against teams with heavy intent on killing QB's like New Orleans.

It says that some of the positions are getting old and need a youth injection (Gire). Other postions lack depth, CB, LB & O-line. The rest of the picks are just luxury picks. Most of them won't be needed or stay on the roster when the season kicks off unless they really impress or stand out.

I love the first four picks! I can't wait for the season to kick off!

Lemonier is a OLB

Originally posted by nannite:

I think the cb picks are simply about numbers. If you draft a guy in the 2nd or 3rd, he has something like a 50% chance of being good. Getting three guys in the 5th and 6th probably gives you about 65% of at least one of them being just as good. Numbers are made up in the absolute sense, but they are probably accurate in the relative sense.

Lemonier is an OLB. Both Lemonier and Skuta could be competent starters. I like Wilhoite as a backup, but as a starter he is by far the weakest link on the defense. The same is true of Kilgore to a lesser extent.

TJE and Williams are the young guys who have impressed the most on the DL. Don't know about Tank or Dial yet. Any DL drafted would have to beat out Dial and Dobbs in order to make the roster, which is no easy task for anyone but a first or second day pick.

Most people wanted a top down draft, ie draft a few impact players at positions of need, instead they had a bottom up draft. This draft will essentially push every mediocre backup off the roster or at least gives them heavy competition.

I look at it this way, the more we win - the more expensive it is to get those Jerry Rice/Ronnie Lott players as rookies. I really was hoping we could trade up for a mike evans, but it was just too expensive. I think the only way we get those players is via the Glen Dorsey/Justin Smith way -- we just have to wait for these teams to screw up and let them go to us via free agency.

Also, factor in that guys like Mike Evans and Sammy Watkins don't get those stats all by themselves. There has to have been some good coaching to coach these raw athletes to be as polished as they are coming out of college. Good coaches can redesign their systems to highlight these players, that is why I think first round picks do have busts despite being supposedly can't miss prospects.

Finally John Taylor, Dwight Clark, Riki Ellison, and the Brent Jones of the draft become all pros because of the good coaching they got here. None of these guys were high round picks at the beginning but they were excellent players. I only remember one time bill walsh traded up, and that was the Jerry Rice pick. Most of the time Bill was trading down. Trading up is nice if you can do it, but our back to back super bowls were based on guys we got in trading down.

We are stacked at every position and right now there is so much uncertainty of who is even going to make the roster. It is crazy how much talent we have. Harbaugh is going for full out competition. Guys will fighting for there roster spots every second of play in TC and other teams will be quietly waiting to poach our cuts like vultures