Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:
Originally posted by genus49:
I hope the 49ers don't have the same thought process. For a few years now it seems like they've had their own evaluation of players which is fine if you're hitting on those picks but can anyone say our so called reach picks have done that?
Last year hard to say we reached for anyone. I know some thought Pearsall was a reach but hearing that the Chiefs were talking about taking him at 32 and seeing a bunch of WRs go off the board shortly after makes that seem less so.
Now Latu, TDP, Banks, Sermon, Hurd. All were considered reaches at the time. Hurd is a tough one because his issue was injury and he certainly looked like a good pick early on before the back injury.
The major reach picks - Latu, TDP and Sermon couldn't even make it through their rookie deals here. TDP stayed on the team the longest and that was a whopping 2 years before he was released.
We absolutely cannot reach at 11. It's one thing to have your own scheme based preferences and grade accordingly but when you have a pick that high you cannot think you're smarter than everyone else.
It doesn't mean you have to take who the draft guru's claim but that early in the draft there should be some consensus. I don't recall too many times when guys taken that early that were considered major reaches turned out to be great picks.
Only one I can think of was maybe Kolton Miller but even then the Raiders realized they can get him later and traded down after we took McGlinchey ahead of them.
Of course as far as who is a reach now is still too early to tell. We've seen guys climb boards and fall for various reasons in the few months ahead of the draft.
Senior Bowl and combine help add a lot of context and boards shake up with those performances whether good or bad.
I just know when it's time for the real deal I hope the 49ers don't dismiss how other people may have players graded. True that end of the day if you draft players who are good on your team it doesn't matter where they were graded BUT if you can get that player after moving down and picking up extra picks to try and draft another good player - you do that.
The process every year is the draftnik community says Prospect A is a second rounder. Right before the draft they move Prospect A to the mid 1st round. It's not so much that Prospect A "climbed the boards" but the mock draft adjusted their rankings to try and match where the NFL actually values them.
If you go back through mock drafts from December over a period of a few years and compare them to the actual first 10-15 picks, you get some really zany results.
I remember when Will McDonald was probably gonna make it to the 3rd round. Jets were smart to take him in the 1st as he's turned into a pretty damn good Edge rusher.
[ Edited by Hysterikal on Jan 17, 2025 at 8:26 AM ]
