What This Draft Told Us About Lynch and Shanahan

Originally posted by TheWooLick:
They believe pass protection is overrated and punting is underrated.

Originally posted by 49erphan:

Originally posted by kem99:

This draft tells us:

1. Yes, they believe in the talent in the secondary and believe the coverage issues last year were the result of: (i) coaching/communication errors; (ii) health or lack there of; (iii) lack of a pass rush. To address these issues they fired the DB coach and brought in a new DB coach who had time to watch film on their players and provide his thoughts in preparation for the draft; did a total revision of the training/strength and conditioning staff; and got the best edge rusher they could get in FA and the best edge rusher in the draft.

2. They definitely believed that receiver/weapons for the offense was a problem. Getting two receivers in the draft isn't that surprising. Getting 2 WR's and 1 TE in the same draft is surprising.

3. This regime clearly tends to lock on to a player and will draft that player early to make sure they get the player. We've seen them overpay in free agency for specific players (Juice, McKinnon, Alexander, etc.). They appear to be willing to overpay by picking players earlier in the draft than one would expect. Solomon Thomas, Ruben Foster, Joe Williams and Beathard all come to mind. They traded up to get Pettis last year and took Street (with an injury) in the 4th round. This year, Hurd appears to be one of those players, as does the punter. They basically said in their press conference that they were worried they would lose him if they didn't pick him in the 4th round. Even if that happened, would it have made that much difference if they got the 2nd best punter in the draft? Bottom line...they appear to try to target specific players more so than being comfortable with, for example, players in a tier and getting a player in that tier instead of their favorite player in that tier.

4. They don't appear to value the secondary as much as other position. In their first draft, they passed on Adams, Latimore and Hooker in favor of Thomas. In the 2018 draft, they passed on Derwin James in favor of McGlinchy. In 3 drafts, they have not drafted a secondary player before the 3rd round. Meanwhile they've drafted: Edge/DT (Thomas -- they believed he could play the LEO at the time); LB (Foster); OT (McGlinchy), Edge (Bosa); WR (Pettis), WR (Samuel) with Witherspoon and Moore (S being converted to CB) being the earliest secondary players being drafted in the 3rd round.

It's a tad alarming to hear some of the same justification being used for not drafting more secondary players that they used last year for not drafting Edge players. A year ago, they said it wouldn't be easy for the players available to them when they could pick to beat out Marsh at Edge. This year, they said the same thing about it would be hard for anyone they could have drafted to beat out Witherspoon, Moore, Taart and Ward. That shows a lot of confidence in their current players, which brings us full circle back to the first item above.

I agree with pretty much everything you say here, but I want to focus on what you said about the secondary play. I just got done rewatching all the games of 2018 season (GamePass, condensed version). It was something to help keep me into 49er football mode during the offseason. One of the obvious things was the poor quality of the secondary play. As you say, injury issues played a significant role in the poor play as did the lack of a pass rush. Later you address the other evident big issue - lack of talent in the secondary. But I kept getting the feeling that the players were not particularly well coached (by NFL standards). I wonder what Sherman actually thinks of the secondary coaching the team got the last year. I have a hunch that though he would probably be too diplomatic to go real negative on those coaches, that he thought it was subpar as well.

Here's to hoping Witherspoon grows into the position more - mentally as well as physically - because he will probably see a fair amount of time on the field this year. And here's especially hoping Ward stays healthy because even though I'm not sure how well he will play if he is not injured, I think there is likely to be a very noticeable drop off if they have to go with Colbert much less Exum or Harris (or Tartt) at free safety - unless one of more of those guys improves quite a bit from last year. Or maybe they'll even move Reed to safety and he starts to shine (doesn't seem likely).

And, of course, the offensive line... WTH?!! To my eye, Tomlinson looked like the weakest link - especially in pass protection - and I was really hoping there would be an upgrade next to Staley. Maybe they have seen Garnett improving enough to knock off Tomlinson, but that seems a bit dubious.