Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
Videos are auto-populated by an affiliate. This site has no control over the videos that appear above.
During the week leading to the San Francisco 49ers' game against the Buffalo Bills, head coach Kyle Shanahan was asked about Josh Allen and how much homework he did on the quarterback leading to the 2018 draft.
"Not a ton," Shanahan responded. "It was him with a number of other guys, guys I was hoping were going to come out earlier, but they didn't, and so we looked at guys more that year, and next year we had Jimmy [Garoppolo]."
So maybe if Allen had come out a year earlier, it would have been the 49ers, not the Bills, who drafted him.
ESPN insider Adam Schefter joined KNBR on Thursday and shared a story of how that nearly happened. However, it would have involved San Francisco hiring a different general manager.
"They had the opportunity to actually take Josh Allen," Schefter said on the
Murph & Mac show. "2017, they're
interviewing the great Terry McDonough, (who was) with Arizona's front office, for general manager, a job that went to John Lynch. And let me say, John Lynch, great choice, great man, great everything. Can't go wrong there.
"Terry also is excellent, and Terry would make a great GM somewhere. But Terry was being interviewed for that job, and Terry was with the Niners brass in 2017. It was the year that the Niners were scheduled to have the second overall pick. This actually would have changed a lot of different things.
"And they asked him his plan, and he went on. And Terry was very close with the agent who was going to represent Josh Allen, Todd France. He told the Niners, 'If you hire me as the GM ... that will enable Josh Allen to come out because he will know I will take him at No. 2 because I'm close with his agent.'
"So, the Niners could have hired Terry McDonough and gotten Josh Allen as their quarterback at No. 2, which would have changed, really, the way football unfolded because as it was, they traded the pick to the Bears [who drafted] Mitchell Trubisky, and the Niners would have had Josh Allen with Terry McDonough as their GM, but they went with John Lynch."
That means Monday night could have been Josh Allen and the 49ers going up against the Buffalo Bills in this strange
What If? storyline. Instead, Lynch and Shanahan made defensive lineman Solomon Thomas their top pick, and the rest is history.
Allen, by the way, is a California native and grew up a fan of the 49ers.
"I grew up a Niners fan,"
Allen told Schefter in 2017. "It's about two, two-and-a-half hours from my hometown so it would be easy for my family to commute there. Obviously, they have a long, storied tradition of great quarterbacks with Steve Young, Joe Montana. That's my favorite team and it would be kind of a dream come true to play for them because, growing up, I had a little book with my picture ... there's a face hole and it was the 49ers. You could go find that book and kind of compare it to what could happen next year and that would just be really cool."
You can listen to the entire KNBR interview with Schefter below.
The San Francisco 49ers announced the signing of wide receiver Trent Taylor to a one-year deal, reuniting with the team's former fifth-round draft pick out of Louisiana Tech.
Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area was the first to report that the 49ers were discussing a potential reunion with Taylor. The receiver was part of head coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch's first draft class in 2017 and spent his first four NFL seasons with the team.
The #49ers are talking with free-agent slot receiver/return man
The San Francisco 49ers are hosting several draft prospects this week as the deadline for pre-draft visits draws near. According to Aaron Wilson of KPRC2, the team will host former Western Kentucky wide receiver Malachi Corley on Wednesday.
Corley is expected to be a Day 2 pick. San Francisco owns two selections on Day 2—the No. 63 overall pick in the second round and the No. 94 overall pick in the third round. Currently, the receiver is visiting with the Seattle Seahawks.
Western Kentucky @WKUFootball receiver Malachi Worley
Ian Rapoport didn't offer much of an update on the ongoing contract negotiations between the San Francisco 49ers and their standout wide receiver, Brandon Aiyuk. However, the NFL insider emphasized one thing: The team is not entertaining trade discussions at this juncture.
Reacting to Aiyuk's decision to unfollow the 49ers on Instagram, Rapoport couldn't help but chuckle at the latest development. This practice has become commonplace among players who are unhappy with their contract situations. Wide receiver Deebo Samuel similarly took this action in 2022 before requesting to be traded just before the draft.
Things have yet to escalate that far with Aiyuk, but Rapoport sees his
Analyst Dane Brugler recently revealed his seven-round mock draft for The Athletic, forecasting all 257 selections in the upcoming 2024 NFL Draft, set to kick off next week.
"Piecing together a mock like this is time consuming, but I enjoy the exercise, because it allows me to focus on each team's needs, organizational trends and prospect-team pairings that make sense based on '30' visits, league buzz and overall interest," Brugler wrote.
Most expect the 49ers to address the trenches early in the draft, and Brugler has the team doing that. It's just not on the offensive side of the football. In fact, Brugler doesn't have San Francisco
