John Lynch - 49ers GM

Originally posted by Fanaticofnfl:

Originally posted by tankle104:

Demo Lenoir: ranked 319th on the ESPN Big Board (picked 172nd)
Talanoa Hufanga: ranked 212th, picked 180th
Brock Purdy: ranked 362nd, picked 262nd
Renardo Green: ranked 106th, picked 64th
Dominick Puni: ranked 104th, picked 86th
Malik Mustapha: ranked 149th, picked 124th

— Harry Berezin (@HarryBerezin) April 26, 2026

we can argue poor value usage of draft picks but it doesn't mean they'll be bad picks overall. I'm really hoping this whole draft balls out.

For the hundredth time, I'm well aware these players could be great.

It's the ASSET MANAGEMENT that bugs me. When you have a 2nd rounder, you don't want to blow it on a player who would've been available in the 4th. It's just flat-out poor value utilization.

We may as well just trade our picks for proven talent at this point.

If we picked Purdy #3 overall, would we be complaining??

If it works, meh...

Originally posted by Heroism:

Originally posted by NYniner85:
Thought this was interesting…Tariq Ahmad, RJ Gillen, and Josh Williams explaining SF's draft process.

I watched that earlier. I'm not sure how to feel about what I heard. Dude brought up Dre Greenlaw and George Kittle as proof of their process...my guy, that was seven years ago. You have no new Kittles or Greenlaws to show for the last four drafts.

I feel like these draft issues might be a systemic problem...

What I got out of that presser is that these guys have a ton of say in all of the draft process. Folks trying to paint a picture where Kyle is some King Joffrey dictator lol. He clearly leans on the whole FO and his coaching staff a lot.

They clearly have an issue with reading the rest of the league and understanding how to draft value based. It's obviously not working and the arrogance across the board is disheartening.

Originally posted by LifelongNiner:
So that mens they have reviewed the drafts of 2022 and 2023 by now. Admittedly, I feel better about the last three drafts than I do those two. But that's a pretty low bar. 2022 and 2023 yielded absolutely nothing. Whereas as it stands right now, we've only acquired decent role player. In the 2024 draft, I can only see Pearsall and Puni having any kind of chance to be a major player due to having a couple of big games for Pearsall and Puni's rookie year. Hopefully Pearsall can remain healthy and Puni can return to form from rookie year. Mustapha finally gets his first real offseason not as a rookie or injured, so we'll see. But it's all a bunch of projection.

Ditto for Mykel Williams the following year. We'll see what the unit looks like altogether over the course of a year.

Someone will win the guard position because someone has to. But no one we have is that talented where we have much of a chance to becoming significantly better as an O-line.

The draft, in my opinion can't be looked at in isolation. '22 and '23 drafts, I belive, didn't have first round picks, or something like that. Point being, for example, our annual 3rd round pick RB draft busts look terrible but if you factor in the CMC trade - our running back situation isn't a disaster despite all the RB pick misfires. Our OLine situation isn't a disaster despite not picking a great OLine pick in day one for half a decade now because of the Trent Williams trade.

What i will say about the draft is that I think ShanaLynch's drafting is trending up. I think their 2025 draft was one of their better ones and the 2026 draft is going to also be one of their better ones because if they even get *one starter* out of it, it's a success with the consensus being how low the talent level was in this draft class.

Originally posted by glorydayz:
If we picked Purdy #3 overall, would we be complaining??

If it works, meh...

Agree and I'll just add that they are doing something right in the later day three rounds by uncovering some gems there that most teams would have spent multiple day one and day two picks on to get. Those are results you can use to counter the *reach pick* arguments.

Originally posted by NYniner85:
What I got out of that presser is that these guys have a ton of say in all of the draft process. Folks trying to paint a picture where Kyle is some King Joffrey dictator lol. He clearly leans on the whole FO and his coaching staff a lot.

They clearly have an issue with reading the rest of the league and understanding how to draft value based. It's obviously not working and the arrogance across the board is disheartening.

Agree 💯 %, thats why losing someone of Saleh's (and Demeco's) coaching caliber really hurts the draft evaluation process. These two coaches have the ability to judge talent that lesser coaches like Wilks and Sorensen simply couldn't provide for ShanaLynch.

Originally posted by NYniner85:
What I got out of that presser is that these guys have a ton of say in all of the draft process. Folks trying to paint a picture where Kyle is some King Joffrey dictator lol. He clearly leans on the whole FO and his coaching staff a lot.

They clearly have an issue with reading the rest of the league and understanding how to draft value based. It's obviously not working and the arrogance across the board is disheartening.

I'm sure he leans on the front office and coaches. Everything said about him is he's a big collaborator of ideas.

Problem is end of day though those guys aren't telling him to use more day 2 draft pick resources on rb vs every other position groups on the team. That's a Kyle call imo.

Kyle prioritizing toys and pass rushers vs everything else on the roster is the issue. I just can't fathom scouts and analytics agreeing with that plan of attack.

Joe Williams was off the board until Kyle put him back on. That's not on scouts.

For elite HC Kyle to flourish he needs to let go of personnel outside of the final 53. I do think given the chance with the power our personnel guys can do the job.

Originally posted by Giedi:

Originally posted by glorydayz:
If we picked Purdy #3 overall, would we be complaining??

If it works, meh...

Agree and I'll just add that they are doing something right in the later day three rounds by uncovering some gems there that most teams would have spent multiple day one and day two picks on to get. Those are results you can use to counter the *reach pick* arguments.

Both things can be true, as long as we win I am good with whatever.

I don't really care about them drafting against consensus. Sometimes I agree with them when they do. I go against census too at times. That is NOT the issue for me.

The issue for me is a lack of common sense with strategy.

1) We don't prioritize OL, waiting later to take them the vast majority of the time

2) We often use premium picks on areas that are already log jammed with depth, making it extremely difficult for those guys to leapfrog the incumbents, so we have high picks sitting on the bench not contributing – happens a lot more frequently than other teams.

3) We're gonna miss some, I get it, but there are certain positions where our hit rate is especially poor. We need to evaluate that and do something about it.

4) I'm also not cool with how we let ourselves get hosed on value in our trade backs too. We seem way too loose about value when we shouldn't be.

I'm still trying to understand the concept of 'consensus', 'value' & 'reaching'. I assume consensus is based on the aggregate rankings of all the national and local analysts and content creators. These are non-professionals and I bet less than 10% actually use 'all 22' film for their evaluations. Most of them probably just look at other rankings first and then adjust their own. I do believe there are a small handful that are better evaluators than what many teams have in their front office.
So, when a pick is labeled as 'a reach' or 'poor value', isn't that assuming that all the teams draft boards are the same as the 'consensus' ? To say, 'you could have picked him 1 round later' is false because you have no idea how other teams value that particular player.. Makes no sense to me. I want all teams to show their draft boards after the draft is over, lol.

Originally posted by 9ers4eva:

Originally posted by NYniner85:
What I got out of that presser is that these guys have a ton of say in all of the draft process. Folks trying to paint a picture where Kyle is some King Joffrey dictator lol. He clearly leans on the whole FO and his coaching staff a lot.

They clearly have an issue with reading the rest of the league and understanding how to draft value based. It's obviously not working and the arrogance across the board is disheartening.

I'm sure he leans on the front office and coaches. Everything said about him is he's a big collaborator of ideas.

Problem is end of day though those guys aren't telling him to use more day 2 draft pick resources on rb vs every other position groups on the team. That's a Kyle call imo.

Kyle prioritizing toys and pass rushers vs everything else on the roster is the issue. I just can't fathom scouts and analytics agreeing with that plan of attack.

Joe Williams was off the board until Kyle put him back on. That's not on scouts.

For elite HC Kyle to flourish he needs to let go of personnel outside of the final 53. I do think given the chance with the power our personnel guys can do the job.

Tend to agree. Whatever it is the reaching in the draft or a huge blind spot for them and has led to some pretty abysmal drafts . Would behoove of them to revamp the strategy

Originally posted by OnTheClock:
I don't really care about them drafting against consensus. Sometimes I agree with them when they do. I go against census too at times. That is NOT the issue for me.

The issue for me is a lack of common sense with strategy.

1) We don't prioritize OL, waiting later to take them the vast majority of the time

2) We often use premium picks on areas that are already log jammed with depth, making it extremely difficult for those guys to leapfrog the incumbents, so we have high picks sitting on the bench not contributing – happens a lot more frequently than other teams.

We're gonna miss some, I get it, but there are certain positions where our hit rate is especially poor. We need to evaluate that and do something about it.

I'm not cool with how we let ourselves get hosed on value in our trade backs too.

Blame the Bill Walsh coaching tree for this philosophy. Mike Shanahan came in under George Seifert and learned the WCO which didn't require what the league would call "top of the line o-line talent".

BW had Bob McKittrick (O-line Coach) so he could draft guys in the 18th round or UDFA and turn them into pro bowlers.

Originally posted by Hoovtrain:
Tend to agree. Whatever it is the reaching in the draft or a huge blind spot for them and has led to some pretty abysmal drafts . Would behoove of them to revamp the strategy

Stop falling in love with skill guys you have to get no matter what. The fixation on RBs WRs and pass rushers to the detriment of everything else on the roster is where the biggest problem lies.

The 49ers have had 2 drafts since thet picked Bosa where they drafted higher than the 25th overall. In 2020 the drafted Kinlaw at 14 and last year they took Williams at 11. I don't count the year they moved up to take Lance because it was a terrible year to evaluate talent because of how Covid disrupted the season. Lot's of guessing tht yer. We know how it affected the next 2 years so we don't need to go into that.

I bring this up because the Niners have rarely been in a position to get elite players. The result is they often reach rather than take someone they feel is average. That's kind of the price you pay when you're competing every year. Lynch has compensated for the weak drafts with good free agent signings and the Niners have remained contenders every year since 2019 after Lynch and Kyle rebuilt this team. Withpout 2 really bad injury plagued seasons they may well have been to 2 more SBs.

I look t teams like the Jets, Browns and Raiders than seem to alway be drafting players I want but then I see how bad those teams are every year. It's a reminder that drafting is only part of winning. Coaching and managing the salary cap are just as important.

Originally posted by OnTheClock:
I don't really care about them drafting against consensus. Sometimes I agree with them when they do. I go against census too at times. That is NOT the issue for me.

The issue for me is a lack of common sense with strategy.

1) We don't prioritize OL, waiting later to take them the vast majority of the time

Other than left tackle, i dont think Kyles offensive zone run scheme needs to be powered by Trent Williams hall of fame level talent across all five OLine positions.

2) We often use premium picks on areas that are already log jammed with depth, making it extremely difficult for those guys to leapfrog the incumbents, so we have high picks sitting on the bench not contributing – happens a lot more frequently than other teams.

Agree, we overdraft some positons probably by design. Kyle mentioned in the press conference that he fully anticipates injuries to his RB's during the season and wants good depth there. In addition His offense depends on the play action fooling the Linebackers, so he wants great RB depth there or he can't fool the people he wants to fool.

3) We're gonna miss some, I get it, but there are certain positions where our hit rate is especially poor. We need to evaluate that and do something about it.

4) I'm also not cool with how we let ourselves get hosed on value in our trade backs too. We seem way too loose about value when we shouldn't be.

Agree, they do reach. I think they do it intentionally.
I think ShanaLynch reaches early in the draft because other teams are looking for the same scheme fit players Kyle is looking for, specially in day one and day two areas. As ShanaLynch says, all it takes is for one team drafting earlier to poach the players they want.

My immediate emotion was disappointment but now I think it's a productive draft. I know that they haven't played a single down in the shield but I'm good with it.

Stribling can block and run. Kirk, Robinson are on 1 year deals. Pearsall can't stay on the field. This guy could be the 3rd/4th guy this year.

Height supplants Huff's speed rush.

Black will stick his nose in and isn't afraid to get dirty in pass protection and runs hard. James might not be there yet and as much as I like Guerrendo he doesn't block. And let's face it McCaffrey is on the decline.

Halton big with a high motor.

Willis good pass blocker.

Prysock tall Corner.

Dugger high motor. As good as Bethune has been. He might end up being better.

Cruz Jr. much needed help on the Oline.