3rd Draft in a Row Without a Projected Starter

Originally posted by Phil:
What happened to Hampton?

Jewel? He is on the 90-man roster, signed a reserve/futures contract in February.

ok.. Where on this roster do they need a projected starter ??

Where? Let's take cornerback out of the discussion right away cuz we know now that Baalke and co. weren't enamored with any of the "top" guys.

No WR would supplant Crabs or Boldin, and if a top WR like OBJ was in play for us, he would've been a 3 at best, which Stevie Johnson is now.

That leaves center. We got Martin who to a lot of people was their #1 ranked player at that position. And while I think Kilgore starts, who knows, Martin may just beat him out.

Originally posted by BrianGO:
If that were true, I would be 100% comfortable with Hyde as a contributor, but there is no evidence Gore is on his last legs. If Gore was truly on his "last legs" we would probably cut him this year. Why pay a guy 6 million of our precious cap space, if we have two young studs in Latt and Hyde sitting behind him?

Gore is 31, which is ancient in RB years, don't think that the coaching staff is blind to that. His YPC was way down near the end of the season. I love Frank Gore as a player but as far as I'm concerned, the organization is looking at this as his swan song. He's a tremendous player in 49ers history but I don't see him all of the sudden having a revival. When RB's fall off the cliff, they tend to fall hard so the 49ers are just preparing them in case Gore hits his inevitable regression point, if he hasn't gotten there already. Its better to be prepared than to have to run around trying to make adjustments at the last minute. If going into the season Gore is completely flat, the 49ers will be prepared for that.

Originally posted by sanjo49er:
ok.. Where on this roster do they need a projected starter ??

Slot corner was the only place and they covered it. That was it...literally. Regardless of what people claimed, no rookie CB was going to come in and supplant Brock or Culliver, the 49ers didn't trade up because they didn't feel any of the CB's were worth trading up for. I'm going to be intrigued to see what happens with Johnson.