2023 First Quarter Assessment

As one of only two undefeated teams remaining and with the third-best point differential in the league (+67), the 2023 campaign has started off considerably more stress-free than recent seasons. This is both a welcome relief and not particularly surprising, as each of the past three years saw us lose our starting quarterback to injury in week two, and apparently that’s pretty important. Regardless, the Niners have come out the gates more connected and more in-tune from top-to-bottom than in years past, which has let us largely cruise through the first month of the season as we enter the thick of our schedule.

OFFENSE

Still not a pumpkin. Through four games, Purdy has posted two excellent outings and two starts that were more than good enough but far from perfect. Against the Rams, his accuracy was a bit off, missing on a few big plays down the field (and a few typical lay-ups underneath). Against the Giants, the combination of Wink Martingale’s 80%+ blitz rate on dropbacks and confusing back-end coverages led to a dicey start. Still, Purdy and our offense settled in enough for him to record his first regular season 300-yard passing game. Only the greatest of Purdy haters could call any of his starts this year (or realistically last year) truly “bad.”

Purdy’s deep ball is still a work in progress and you can sometimes see the ball fall off a bit when he has to throw across body in a hurry (also, they really need to get those center exchanges figured out), but his anticipation and understanding of the offense have clearly improved since his rookie season. He’s getting the ball out faster on our slants and quick game while impressing with his timing and placement on the second-layer and second-window throws that open up behind them.

Purdy’s average time to throw (TTT) is nearly three-tenths of a second faster than last year, while his average intended air yards (IAY) are up by .8 of a yard over that same time period. While those improvements may sound minuscule, that TTT improvement moves him from 25th- to 6th-fastest in the league at speed of release, and the IAY puts him above players such as Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Trevor Lawrence, etc. Neither of these stats is inherently an indicator of success—after all players like Mahomes and Allen often hold onto the ball the longest and the current leaders in IAY are Jordan Love, Jalen Hurts, and Ryan Tannehill—but there are few scenarios where you want your QB with subpar arm strength holding onto the ball longer. And if you’re getting rid of the ball quickly while still pushing it further down the field at the 72% completion percentage Purdy currently carries, you’re doing something right. Other statistics that point to Purdy doing something right include that he currently leads the league in adjusted yards per attempt (10), QB rating (115.1), and QBR (84.6). And he still hasn’t lost a game.

Purdy—like all NFL quarterbacks—will eventually have an actually bad game, and he will eventually lose. But I think we can comfortably say that Purdy’s floor is much higher than Garoppolo’s. Bad Jimmy games would almost always include a mind-boggling interception (or two), and a play-calling shift to protect him in a way that made us much more one-dimensional and conservative on offense. Purdy has for sure thrown some interception-worthy balls both this season and last, but his valleys are not nearly as deep or as long as his predecessor’s, and—nearly as importantly—Shanahan seems to have trust that he’ll climb out of those holes in a hurry.

Increasingly aggro. Going hand-in-hand with Purdy’s raised floor is Shanahan’s belief in his quarterback and—by proxy—our passing attack. This has led to a noticeable increase in aggressiveness dating back to last season, which has continued into 2023. With two fourth-down attempts (both called passes) and a QB sneak that ended the first half against the Rams (and would prove pivotal in that game), Shanahan clearly trusts Purdy’s decision-making in high-pressure situations, and the Niners have benefited from that.

Shanahan isn’t the most aggressive coach (nor do we want him to be given the most aggressive coach is probably Brandon Staley), but the subtle increases in the likelihood that we’ll go for it on fourth down or call a pass in high-leverage situations late in games greatly improve our ability to both secure and retain leads.

So that trade worked. Ten days after we traded for CMC, he threw, ran, and rushed for a touchdown in a crucial win against a division rival. He is considerably better now. 

While Christian McCaffrey was a spark plug and a force multiplier for our offense from the second he landed in the Bay, his increased comfort level in our scheme (in particular our run game) is apparent this season. Last year there were times when Elijah Mitchell’s burst, speed, and experience in the offense made him the better option as a pure runner. With an off-season to get used to the many nuances of our blocking schemes, CMC is making sure that is no longer the case. 

Through four games, CMC is on pace for a record-breaking 2,550 yards from scrimmage and 30 touchdowns. And while stating pace marks four games in is basically pointless, CMC leads the league in yards from scrimmage, missed tackles, and touchdowns from scrimmage, while his 323 rushing yards after contact are more than every other running back other than De’Andre Swift has in total rushing yards.

The only potentially worrisome stat attached with CMC is that he leads the league in touches, but hopefully, the healthy return of Elijah Mitchell will allow us to split up the touches more in a way that keeps everyone healthy and fresh into the post-season.

The wobbly right. Things today look much better than they did three weeks ago, when TJ Watt abused Colton Mckivitz into three sacks and the entire right side of our line seemed like a potential weakness. Now, on an offense that’s performing this well, that right side is… still a potential weakness, but one that’s been trending upward and is coming off its best performance of the year.

Trent is and will continue to be our best lineman (and the world’s best lineman), and Banks—while not spectacular—has become a reliable running mate beside him. It should come as no surprise that CMC—over the past two years—has his highest YPC running between those two guys. At center, Brendel doesn’t fly outside and make second-level blocks like some of our past point men and he’ll occasionally get beat in pass pro, but he seems to get the boys to the right assignments the large majority of the time, and—given the issues we’ve had at the center position over the years—we’ll take that.

At right guard, the hope was that Spencer Burford would go from part-time starter last season to—at least—somewhere around where Banks was in his second year. Perhaps he still will, but Burford was a turnstile in pass pro the first two weeks (and had three penalties in week one) before settling in a bit as of late. Burford has great tools and upside for the position so the hope is that he can continue to ascend throughout the season to a level where—seemingly for the first time—we won’t have to worry about the right guard position late into the year.

Out wide, Colton McKivitz took over for Mike McGlinchey at right tackle. While letting Big Mike walk for a huge payday in Denver (and a third-round comp pick) was unquestionably the right move, McKivitz didn’t win over any doubters after the debacle against TJ Watt. But, like Burford, he’s coming off his two best games of the season and held up well in pass pro against the Giants’ “blitz everyone, all the time” approach. 

After an inauspicious start, the arrow’s pointing up on both Burford and McKivitz, and we can safely consider this potential red flag something more of an orange-ish one. That said, we’ll know for sure this weekend what kind of weakness our right side may be as we go up against potentially the best and most athletic pass rush we’ll face all year. 

DEFENSE

The inside has arrived. Unsurprisingly, adding one of the best interior pass rushers on the planet will make the inside of your D-line considerably better at rushing the passer. Who knew?! Through four games, Javon Hargrave—whose “Gravedigger” nickname is both excellent and fitting—has already matched last season’s positional total in sacks with three. The dude looks and plays like a cannonball.

But Hargrave isn’t the only reason our interior is generating so much more pressure this season. Arik Armstead is healthy again beside him, and the second-line rotation of Kevin Givens and (gasp) Javon Kinlaw has been a terror for teams to deal with. While Kinlaw is in the fourth year of his rookie deal and his fifth-year option was declined this off-season, it’s nice to see him finally healthy and making an impact in a way that we’ve all been hoping for. 

On the outside, Drake Jackson and his go-go-gadget arms racked up three sacks in the opener but none since. While he wasn’t going to keep that pace and double the NFL’s single-season sack record, he’s been hustling and making his presence felt. We’ll want more production opposite Bosa as the season continues, but Jackson and Clelin Ferrell—who have split snaps almost evenly thus far—have had their moments this season, and—in Omenihu last year and Key the year before—Kocurek has often found a way to get complementary pieces to step up as the season goes on.

As for Bosa, he only has one sack in our first four games, but all signs point to that being an aberration. Per PFF, he’s graded out as the highest edge defender in the league through the first month of the season—this despite him missing all of training camp and needing some time to re-acclimate his body to football. Against the Cardinals he looked as disruptive as he has all season, and his 10 QB hits on the year are good for third in the NFL and—on average—would result in 4.5 sacks. For reference, the two dudes with more QB hits (TJ Watt and Myles Garrett at 13 each) have totaled 6 and 5.5 sacks, respectively. All this to say, Bosa has been the victim of variance and bad luck, and the floodgates should open soon when it comes to his sack numbers.

The corner carousel. Through four games, we’ve had four cornerbacks playing major snaps across three starting positions. How much of that is due to match-ups, inconsistency, or pure numbers is up for debate, but it’s probably some combination of all of the above.

In terms of numbers, fifth-round pick Darrel Luter got hurt in July and hasn’t been able to play since. While he’s expected to be back soon(ish), he’s a fifth-round rookie from a small school who missed all of training camp, so anything he can give us this season would be gravy. Samuel Womack on the other hand very well could have been a part of our rotation (maybe even a major one) if he hadn’t injured his MCL in week 1. He’s currently on short-term IR and we should expect to see him later this season. Finally, promising undrafted free agent D’Shawn Jamison got poached by the Panthers after cutdown day and is on their active roster, while Qwuantrezz Knight—who is really more of a safety—was one of the three practice squatters whom the Cardinals swooped from us earlier this year.

That means we only have four healthy cornerbacks to choose from for three positions, and with Ward and Lenoir set in stone, Isaiah Oliver and Ambry Thomas are competing for that third spot. So far, Steve Wilks has flipped back and forth between packages with Lenoir outside and Oliver inside and Thomas outside and Lenoir inside. 

Some of the shuffling has been matchup-based. For instance, Oliver started inside last week but Lenoir moved into the nickel when the speedy and smaller Rondale Moore started getting more snaps in the slot. While Lenoir saw a season-low three snaps inside against the Giants, who use bigger receivers and often tight end Darren Waller in the slot. But some of it’s performance-based as well. Namely, neither guy has played outstanding for a long stretch of time and distanced himself from the other. Oliver has put up plenty of good tape in the nickel over the past five years, but he hasn’t looked amazing against the quicker guys since arriving in the Bay. Whereas Thomas has good tools and has flashed well (end of 2021, anyone?), but also has been more susceptible to brain farts and double moves than our other options outside. 

The wildcard in the race is Anthony Brown, who we signed just a few days ago off the street as he recovers from an Achilles tear suffered last December. Brown has played a lot of good football, starting 28 straight games in Dallas opposite Trevon Diggs before his injury, and—if healthy—should give us at least insurance outside, if not another starting option that lets us slide Lenoir into the nickel.

I have to think part of the constant shuffling to this point is just Steve Wilks trying to figure out exactly what he has and who he can lean on when we start lining up against elite offenses—as well as him trying to prepare as many players as possible for extended roles in case there’s injury attrition down the road. If either Thomas or Oliver really steps up their game and their consistency (or Womack or Brown force their way into the equation), then maybe we’ll see a starting three that is set in stone at some point this season. But if not, there’s a strong chance that—for better or worse—this rotation will continue indefinitely.

A delayed blitz? Much of the talk surrounding Steve Wilks entering his first season as our DC was that he’d like to blitz more than his predecessors did. So far, that hasn’t been the case. Through four games, our 20.1% blitz rate is bottom ten in the league and a few notches below the rate DeMeco sent extra rushers last year. But there are a few signs that our blitz rate might increase over the course of the season.

Anecdotally, it seems like we’re sending more men in the second halves of our games, which is typically when we’ve played our best defense. In the four second halves this season, we’ve allowed a grand total of 18 points, and never more than six in a single contest. If heavier blitzing is simply where Wilks is most comfortable, then it’s safe to say we might see more of it as the season continues.

The other reason why our blitz rate may increase this year is that most of our opponents have deployed an offensive game plan around quick passes and screens to nullify our pass rush. This was never more evident than in our matchup against the Rams, where rookie sensation Puka Nacau racked up 15 catches and 147 yards on 20(!) targets—almost entirely on hitches, curls, and short crossers. Since we’re predominantly a zone team, there’s no easy way to take away that quick game when teams can execute it efficiently enough, so the direction Wilks has often leaned on is showing blitz, sending an extra man, dropping someone else into a passing lane, and hoping that our added rush gets home, our hidden underneath coverage baits a bad pass, or—ideally—all of the above. 

I think we’ve all been pleased with how few transition costs we’ve incurred in the move from Ryans to Wilks, but I’m definitely interested to see what our defense looks like once Wilks is fully settled into how he wants to deploy our personnel.

SPECIALS

Money Moody. Hats off to the rookie. Despite announcers trying to jinx him at every turn, a shaky pre-season, and weird Steelers shit on his first-ever field goal attempt (which was technically blocked by five dudes who were all off-sides), our rookie kicker’s only blemishes through four games are two kickoffs kicked out of bounds.

On kicks that directly result in points, he’s been a perfect 14-of-14 on extra points and 9-of-9 on field goals, including a 57-yarder on the road in the second half of our closest game to date (it was in LA, so only technically on the road, but still). 

We still need to see him in game-winning and high-pressure situations, but so far it looks like that shaky preseason had more to do with an NFL adjustment period and the injured quad he didn’t know he had than his long-term ability.

The next four games will surely tell us more than the first four did, as we’re through the softest part of our schedule and the rest can be considered legitimately difficult. Every quartet of games features at least one current or pre-season Super Bowl contender as well as matchups against one or more teams with—according to aggregate playoff predictor models—a 50%+ chance of making this year’s playoffs. That starts Sunday night against a Dallas team that is one of the top 3 teams in the conference and has realistic Super Bowl aspirations.

Nevertheless, it feels good to—for the first time in years—start the season strong so that we’re not playing catch-up from the jump.

Go Niners 🏈👍

Floors and Ceilings

yonder

If the Brock Purdy era wasn’t already made official when he came back from elbow surgery, it was cemented with the Niners’ trade of Trey Lance. This 49ers team (and its Super Bowl window) is now firmly in the hands of the second-year quarterback who—just a year ago—fell to the last pick in the draft mostly due to questions about his physical tools and lack of upside. So what can we (and should we) expect from Purdy as he enters year two and beyond? And—on a macro level—what is the value of a pocket passer without a strong arm in 2023?

There is likely no time in history when the running ability and arm strength of a quarterback is prioritized more at the quarterback position than it is right now. Part of that is due to rule changes that have increased defensive PI calls and decreased offensive holding calls during scrambles, as well as the never-ending emphasis on overprotecting quarterbacks inside and outside the pocket. Schematic shifts towards more spread-out formations have also led to larger passing windows down the field and RPOs and screens have created a plethora of underneath free-bees that even raw players can take advantage of as they develop.

That said, the key traits of successful quarterback play are—and will continue to be—knowing where to go with the ball at the right time and putting it there—two skills that are largely reliant on intelligence, accuracy, work ethic, and a preternatural ability to see the field and anticipate openings in defenses. 

That makes the development of Brock Purdy—and effectively, any undersized signal-caller without plus athleticism or arm talent—so interesting in an era that is more obsessed with a quarterback’s physical traits than ever before.

Durability

Let’s look at the most triggering topic first, as likely no team in the league knows better than us the importance of having a quarterback (or eight) who is healthy and available. As stated in the Trey Lance write-up, backup quarterbacks have started a whopping 38.7% of regular season games during the ShanaLynch era, and we’ve had to turn to third-stringers (or worse) in four of the past six seasons. Given Purdy is the smallest quarterback we’ve deployed during this era—and is coming off a major arm injury—it’s worth wondering if we’re about to embark on yet another Jimmy G rollercoaster of endless injury woes. So let’s look at some measurable comps.

When people talk about Brock Purdy they pretend like he’s 5-6, 155 pounds and his mom just packed a PB&J in his red and gold backpack before dropping him off at practice. Purdy’s size is certainly a drawback, but he’s far from an outlier in terms of height, weight, and build among starting NFL quarterbacks. Using official combine measurements (because we all know the roster ones are B.S.), I found a couple of body types among current (and recent) starters that most closely match Purdy’s:

Bryce Young: 70.13” — 204 lbs. — n/a
Kyler Murray: 70.13” — 207 lbs. — 9 games missed/4 years
Russell Wilson: 70.63” — 204 lbs. — 5 games missed/11 years
Tua Tagovailoa: 72” — 217 lbs. — 14 games missed/3 years
Drew Brees: 72.3” — 213 lbs. — 18 games missed/20 years
Brock Purdy: 72.63” — 212 lbs — 1 game missed/1 year
Baker Mayfield: 72.63” — 215 lbs. — 2 games missed/4 years
Sam Howell: 72.63” — 218 lbs. — n/a

If size directly equates to durability, this is not the most optimistic list. Howell and Young get a pass because they haven’t played enough, but Tua and Kyler’s injury concerns are well-documented, and Baker and Purdy have already gotten banged up during their young careers. But there are two very durable players on this list—both future Hall of Famers—and they’ve stayed healthy in drastically different ways.

Russell Wilson is the epitome of the scrambling quarterback who can extend plays long enough to take shots downfield or eat up small gains on the ground—all while avoiding much (if any) real contact. Superior athleticism helps in this regard and so does having a build that is stout and more running-back-like than most of the guys on this list. On the flip side, Drew Brees started nearly 300 games over 20 years in the league by getting the ball out of his hands as quickly as anyone in NFL history. As always, you’re a lot less likely to get injured when you’re not getting hit, and that’s something that Brees (and Tom Brady) have mastered throughout their careers.

We love how Purdy can extend plays and make something out of nothing. It’s one of the defining characteristics that makes us hope he can ascend from the muddled masses of “system quarterbacks” into something greater. But there’s a time and place for all that, and within our YAC-obsessed underneath passing game, you’d hope Purdy can typically get the ball out quick enough that he doesn’t have to expose himself to unnecessary hits. As quarterbacks get more reps, they naturally get better at anticipating openings and releasing the ball quicker. Purdy’s already good at this. The faster he gets great/elite at it, the more likely he is to stay healthy.

Keeping Purdy upright and healthy will also be a task for Shanahan and the Niners. While I think Shanahan gets too much flak for the QB injuries, we haven’t always had clean hot routes to counteract extra pressure in our dropback game. With opposing D-coordinators likely to send extra rushers this season—and Purdy’s most natural counter to that pressure being his ability to read defenses and find underneath receivers quickly out of spread and empty sets—it will be critical that we always have an escape hatch outlet for our quarterback so that he can avoid unnecessary hits.

There’s also the elephant in the room of Colton McKivitz. I get that TJ Watt is one of the five best players in the world at defensive end, but the Niners surrendered three sacks in the opener and McKivitz allowed all of them—some so quickly that Brock Purdy never had a shot. Given his up-and-down career to this point and the fact that he played few meaningful snaps last year, our new starting right tackle was always going to be a worry spot heading into the season. After one week, those worries have only grown.

If McKivitz doesn’t improve, we may have to give him more and more help as the season goes on, but that’s easier said than done. Yes, George Kittle is an excellent blocking tight end, but he’s also an excellent receiver, and anything that prevents us from utilizing all our offensive weapons or forces us into more reps from specific formations limits what we can do offensively.

Sophomore Slump

Purdy doubters typically adhere to some combination of two separate arguments: (1) Purdy’s lack of physical tools and draft positioning means he can’t actually be that good; (2) he looked good for such a small sample size that he’s bound to regress to the mean after teams get an off-season to study and prepare for him. Basically, they don’t see Purdy as a rising young player but a guy who stumbled into a Vegas heater that is about to run its course.

The list of quarterbacks who’ve shown glimpses of stardom—or peaked during a small stretch of games early in their career only to fall into mediocrity—is a long one: Baker Mayfield went from Cleveland’s savior to the narrow winner of the NFL’s saddest quarterback battle. Vince Young followed up an exciting—albeit uneven—rookie of the year season and Pro Bowl alternate selection with a 9-to-17 touchdown-to-interception ratio in year two. The Matt’s (Cassel and Flynn) leveraged explosive fill-in starts into massive free agent deals in Kansas City and Seattle, respectively. Cassel proceeded to throw as many interceptions as picks while leading the Chiefs to a four-win season while Flynn got beat out by a rookie Russell Wilson and threw nine total passes in mop-up duty before being shipped off to the Raiders. Sample size can be a helluva thing. 

But each of these players had extenuating circumstances. Mayfield played for the Browns—which honestly could just be the end of this sentence—under Freddie Kitchens (never not funny), and immaturity questions hounded both him and the organization throughout his tenure. Young had a fun highlight reel as a rookie but was horribly inefficient as a passer, threw for more picks than touchdowns in year one, and—in retrospect—we now know he was dealing with a number of undiagnosed mental issues such as bipolar disorder. Cassel went 10-5 in fifteen starts for the injured Tom Brady, putting up a respectable line of 3,693-21-11 in the process, but that becomes a bit less impressive when you realize that—just one year prior—Tom Brady piloted that same offense and led the league in passing yards (4,806), QB rating (117.2), and set a then-NFL record for passing touchdowns (50) en route to an NFL MVP and the league’s only 16-0 regular season. Finally, Matt Flynn torched the Lions for 480 yards(!) And six touchdowns(!!) in a Week 16 matchup that was pointless to the Packers (who had already locked up the #1 seed) but massively important to Flynn’s checkbook. The man he subbed in for that game? Aaron Rodgers, that year’s MVP.

In Purdy’s case, the inherent issues and expected drop-off that come from a player jumping into a new system and new supporting cast are nonexistent. It’s undeniable that teams will approach Purdy with a more specific game plan now that they’ve seen film of his tendencies and weaknesses. He doesn’t have a rocket arm. He’s a little too quick to escape the pocket at times. Defenders will start to key his habit of using a back shoulder turn to flush to his left out of pressure. But Purdy isn’t riding a fatty contract to a new team and a foreign offensive system. He’s not being brought in as the savior of a downtrodden franchise looking to steal some magic-by-osmosis from someone who's brushed by a future Hall of Fame quarterback. He’s plugged into year two of one of the best offensive schemes in football and surrounded by some of the best offensive weapons in the game.

Just as importantly, the rookie quarterback who hits the sophomore slump often does so because the league figures him out faster than he figures out the league. It so often comes down to issues of maturity, work ethic, and process, and—when it comes to those three traits—Brock Purdy looks like a bonafide blue-chipper. This is the guy who—as the scout team QB—would stay a half hour after each practice to run through the entire day’s script on air. Who—despite taking Iowa State to unforeseen heights—never had a “chip on his shoulder” mentality about the draft process, but was instead humble and self-aware enough to submerge himself in a biomechanics think tank to remake his body and throwing motion before his rookie season.

It is the process and the approach that have allowed the most impressive of player transformations throughout the years because when those qualities are elite, exponential learning and improvement become possible. That borderline psychopathic commitment to improvement has powered Jalen Hurts’ ascension from erratic-armed run-first QB to MVP candidate in Philadelphia. It let Tom Brady improve both his arm strength and his accuracy when many claimed that neither was possible. While it’s impossible to predict where that mental makeup will lead Purdy, I feel confident in saying that—at the very least—the league won’t catch up to him due to him not taking the craft seriously enough.

Arm Talent

Purdy has a quick, compact release, is comfortable throwing off-balance and from multiple arm slots, and his overall arm talent is better than most give him credit for. However, he’s never going to have a howitzer strapped to his shoulder like Allen, Mahomes, or this season’s toolsy draft-darling Anthony Richardson, and he’s unlikely to ever climb out of the bottom half of NFL starters when it comes to pure arm strength and velocity. Thus, the biggest question in Purdy’s game is how proficient he can become as a deep-ball passer, as any ability to stretch defenses down the field and outside the hashes opens up more for our offense than probably any other offense in the NFL.

According to PFF, these were the top ten highest-graded quarterbacks in deep ball passing (20+ yards in the air or more) during the 2022 regular season:

1. Geno Smith

2. Tom Brady

3. Joe Burrow

4. Tua Tagovailoa

5. Patrick Mahomes

6. Kenny Pickett

7. Mitch Trubisky

8. Daniel Jones

9. Josh Allen

10. Kirk Cousins 

Of those players, Mahomes and Allen have elite arm strength. Geno and Trubisky have plus arm strength. Daniel Jones—just like with everything—is (at best) middle of the pack. But Burrow, Tua, Pickett, Cousins, and age-45 Brady are clearly in the bottom half of the NFL in terms of arm strength, meaning 5 of the top 10 and 3 of the top 5 deep ball passers have average or worse arm strength. That’s because deep ball passing in the NFL is less about elite arm strength and more about elite touch, accuracy, and anticipation—all traits that Purdy already possesses and can be improved with time.

In 2022, Purdy’s deep-passing numbers ranked 38th in PFF—behind all but three other starters—so there’s plenty of work to be done in the area, but rapid improvement in the vertical passing game is more common than you might think. As crazy as it seems now, Burrow was only 9-of-46 on passes of 20+ air yards and a single touchdown in 2000 for an EPA/dropback of -0.14. A year later, he jumped to 27-of-62 on those passes for an EPA/dropback of 0.77 while leading the league with 11 deep touchdowns. Tua—another regular atop vertical passing metrics—had a similarly explosive ascent up the ranks following a rookie season when his deep passing was anemic. Same with Derek Carr. Now, some of this vast improvement can be chalked up to the variability of the vertical passing metric. There’s also a legitimate argument that rookies usually aren’t great vertical passers because the awareness and anticipation needed to excel in that regard just isn’t likely to be there yet. But improvement as a deep passer without elite arm strength is very much a thing—especially for young signal callers—so that element of his game shouldn’t be written off quite yet.

That said, I do think Purdy’s arm strength needs to improve if he’s going to maximize his deep ball opportunities. While he has nice zip on underneath passes and between the hashes, you can see the ball drop or hit receivers on the wrong shoulder when he has to zip balls across his body or outside the hashes—particularly when he doesn’t have the time or space to step into his throws. One of the biggest bummers about Purdy’s elbow injury is that he couldn’t spend the off-season strengthening his mechanics and working to improve his arm strength. While huge gains in arm strength aren’t common, the fact that he reworked his body before the draft to create a looser whip of a throwing motion means a second and third off-season of biomechanic work likely can unearth a bit more. Sadly, we’ll have to wait until next season to see whatever gains that work could bring. But by just improving his arm strength a tick or two (while continuing to improve accuracy and anticipation via standard reps) could pay massive dividends. I mean, look at these cut-ups of vertical passes by Tua…

Tua Tagovailoa on passes that travel 20+ air yards:

On-Target: 69.6% (Per SIS Data Hub)
Adjusted Comp Percentage: 55.2% (per PFF)

Both figures led all NFL passers. #FinsUp

(Part 1 of video) pic.twitter.com/qxAbcuYpPh

— George Forder (@GeorgeForder3) January 24, 2022

… or this video that the NFL won’t let me embed of some of Joe Burrow’s deep balls last year.

While the anticipation and accuracy are impressive, is there anything physically in these videos that you can’t imagine Purdy doing? Especially with a few MPHs more on his arm? Brock’s never going to be the dude threatening deep outs to the field side and off-script bombs down the field off a scramble drill. When the timing of a play goes to shit is when elite arm strength can’t be replicated, so Purdy will need to get his deep balls within the scope of the offense. But we don’t need a guy who lives on the deep ball. We need a guy who can do just enough of it to where defenses can’t crowd the box and key our inside passing and run game.

Potential Comps

LOW-END - Shake N Bake Garoppolo

No one wants a low-end projection, but I wanted to give a wide range of potential outcomes here, and this one seems as safe, boring, and pessimistic as they come. Purdy has already shown that he can operate the underneath game that we love to employ and hit guys in stride to set up YAC yards between the hashes. If he never improves on his deep ball and is more or less the same player we’ve seen but with some bad games and injury issues sprinkled consistently throughout his tenure with the 49ers, then we kind of already know what that looks like. After all, we’ve been living in it for quite a few years now.

This isn’t meant to disparage Jimmy G, as we won a lot of games with him, but I don’t think there’s a world where the bottom just falls out on Purdy and he becomes much worse than what Jimmy gave us. Brock’s ceiling may have questions but his floor seems solid. And while durability will certainly be a question until it’s not, Jimmy was about as routinely injured as you could possibly be in the NFL while still being considered a starting quarterback. So if Brock somehow becomes more injury-prone than Jimmy, well… he just wouldn’t be our starter anymore.

Thus far, the biggest difference between the two is that—even with a small sample size—Brock is clearly superior at evading pressure, improvising on the run, and working outside of structure (hence the “shake n bake” designation). While this projection implies that Brock doesn’t improve at all from what we’ve already seen and is inherently pessimistic, Purdy has only played well and only won games since taking over the starting job. There are far worse outcomes than a Jimmy G-type who is available and work outside of structure.

MID-TIER - Cold-Blooded Creative Cousins

Kirk Cousins gets a lot of shit for being a system quarterback, but what really hurts his reputation is the fact that he’s seen as kind of a lame dude who wilts in his team’s biggest moments. From a statistical and analytical view, this is still a guy who has thrown for 4,000+ yards in seven of his past eight seasons (the Niners as a franchise have only three 4,000+ yard passing seasons) and has finished as a top 15 PFF QB in eight of his last nine (including three top ten finishes in the past four years). Despite that, his reputation is dragged down by his penchant for playing for .500-ish teams that no one is scared of or gives a shit about, the 0-9 Monday Night Football record that he started his career with, and his 1-4 post-season mark.

To be clear, I’m not a Kirk Cousins apologist. I’m just saying there’s always been a little something missing that stops people from putting him in the tier of quarterbacks that you really get excited about. While it’s early, Purdy kind of already has the stuff that Cousins has been missing. The cool confidence that immediately wins over a locker room and takes him to an 8-0 record as a starter (with twice as many playoff wins than Cousins has in his career). The off-script creativity and elusiveness that Kirk has never shown and that has helped lead to his poor reputation under pressure.

To be fair, Cousins has better arm strength than Purdy and has made himself into a dangerous deep ball passer over the years, but his physical tools are very much in striking distance of our young signal caller. Someone who can make the variety of throws that Cousins can, and—when needed—lead the offense through the air to open up the ground game is incredibly dangerous in our offense. Add in the creativity and steely resolve that Purdy has already shown in his young career, and that’s someone who wins a lot of games.

HIGH-END - Baby Burrow

After it became clear that Purdy was the dude who was going to be leading us into last year’s playoffs (and likely beyond), the first comp that came to mind was Baby Burrow. Not because Purdy is close to the level of quarterback that Burrow currently is but because both of them have a similar demeanor, composure, and swaggy creativity about them despite neither having particularly strong arms.

Burrow is widely considered either the second- or third-best quarterback in all of football because of the gamer mentality he plays with and the incredible anticipation and accuracy he shows when throwing to every level of the field. Despite an arm that ranks in the bottom half of the league, his placement and his ability to release the ball before his receivers break open is unparalleled. He is, without question, the current gold standard when it comes to quarterbacks excelling without elite arm strength. Needless to say, even a lesser version than him is a lofty goal.

Once again, Purdy would need to up his arm strength and continue to improve his accuracy through his biomechanics work to even approach this kind of comparison. And we need considerably more information on how he plays in tight games before we know how consistently he can lead us to victory rather than just pilot the ship when things are going well. But I don’t think it’s at all out of the question that Purdy—with enough time and reps—can become a top 10 quarterback if everything falls right. Yes, the physical ceiling is real, but it’s impossible not to be impressed with everything else about his game, and—even in 2023—it’s the “everything else” that still separates the bad from the good and the good from the great when it comes to quarterbacks.

Go Niners 🏈👍

The Era That Never Was

Perhaps this write-up is premature. 

After all, we quite literally just watched a third string quarterback take over a team mid-season and then string off seven straight victories to take us deep into the playoffs. In six years under ShanaLynch, backup quarterbacks have made 38 regular season starts—good for a depressing 38.7% of all games. Only once—in 2019—did our starter make it through the entire season, and only twice—in 2019 and 2021—did we need less than THREE quarterbacks to get through the year. Unfortunately, injuries have been synonymous with our quarterbacks. That said, this week’s news of Sam Darnold winning the backup QB spot over Trey Lance makes it highly likely that any future successes—or lack thereof—of the former No.3 overall pick who we moved mountains to draft will happen somewhere outside of Santa Clara. 

As we’ve seen (too many times) before, anything can happen when it’s us and the quarterback position. But with the Niners fielding trade offers, it seemed like the right time to talk Trey Lance and the many moving parts that have led to where we are today.

What Happened Developmentally?

Brock Purdy is the simplest answer here, but the real answer is far more complex. 

When the Niners traded up to the third overall pick in the 2020 draft, they did so specifically to target their quarterback of the future. Coming off the heels of a disappointing 2020 season in which Garoppolo was in and out of the lineup and started only 6 games (this just one season removed from a year when he blew out his ACL and started only 3 games) the Niners knew that they needed more consistency and upside at the quarterback position. In Trey Lance, they saw someone whose escapability and durability would raise the offense’s floor and whose dual-threat potential and strong arm would increase its ceiling. Their contention window was firmly open, and they felt like they couldn’t waste their opportunity relying on the oft-injured Jimmy G.

That said, a healthy Jimmy G won a lot of games with the Niners, and—given he was set to return to health in 2021—the Niners found themselves in a unique position. Unlike most teams, the Niners did NOT have to play their developmental quarterback right away because they were actually more viable contenders under their incumbent. It’s easy to tell a rebuilding team, “hey, let’s go through the lumps together to let this kid grow” when you’re topping out at six wins and another top ten pick. Much harder when your veterans have just been to the Super Bowl and you’re ready to contend now. 

So the Niners sat Lance. He played sparingly (2.5 games as a starter), and we were once again some passing game deficiencies and a banged-up Jimmy G away from another Super Bowl appearance. Theoretically, nothing during that 2021 season altered Lance’s early development. But that’s not entirely true.

Lost in the shuffle and excitement of the crazy multiple-quarterback shredding of the Raiders in the last preseason game of 2021 was the fact that Lance smashed his finger. After a few weeks off, he returned to play in spot duty, but his throwing motion was off, and—as he admitted this summer—this set him back to the point where fixing it became his primary focus of the following off-season. What we also lost when Lance’s finger hit the helmet of that Vegas defender was any real potential for a dual-quarterback system, and thus—any chance for Lance to get meaningful snaps as a rookie. While there were a number of issues that would have made such a system far from a slam dunk—including issues of offensive flow that we saw in the early parts of 2021—the likelihood of Lance getting a handful of snaps here and there on designed runs and option plays was much higher if he was actually available early in the season. But he wasn’t. Perhaps we would have tried it again after Lance got his first injury-replacement start against the Cardinals in week 5, but Lance sprained his knee in that game and didn’t play another meaningful snap until his next injury fill-in start in week 16. For a player who needed reps, tightening of his throwing motion, and better lower body mechanics, finger and knee injuries that kept him from seeing relevant snaps were a tough developmental blow. But at this point, Lance was still 100% our guy.

With so few reps in his first year, and having spent much of the off-season fixing his throwing motion rather than fine-tuning his quarterback skills, Lance entered last year’s training camp as a glorified rookie. Due to his college shutting down football during COVID, he had started only three games of football in two whole years, and now was the time to binge those reps that he so desperately needed. With Jimmy G’s contract up, this was always the chunk of time that the Niners had set aside to let Lance grow, make mistakes, and—hopefully—improve enough by the end of the season to make us dangerous in the playoffs. After starting the opener in a monsoon, Lance broke his ankle on the first offensive drive of week 2, and his season was over. This setback was devastating. Three years of football. Just over four starts. But it wasn’t by any means the nail in the coffin. Until Brock Purdy happened.

We’ll talk more about Purdy later, but when the guy who replaces you (or, technically, replaces your replacement) strings off seven straight wins (including two in the playoffs) that guy is gonna have the inside track to the starting job moving forward. But it’s not just Purdy’s presence that supplanted Lance. It’s how what Purdy does so well meshes naturally with what our offense wants from our quarterbacks.

Purdy, a four-year starter in college, doesn’t need a lot of practice reps and can start games fast. He excels at the quick game—which is the proverbial bread-and-butter of our passing attack—and he’s just slippery enough to extend plays and nullify negatives. Lance, both in practice and in games, is a slow starter who takes a while to get in rhythm. His speed and big arm can threaten defenses in a way that Purdy can’t, but he hasn’t been quick, accurate, or decisive enough on the underneath passes to be consistent in setting up those chunk plays. In the simplest of terms, Lance was drafted to eventually raise the ceiling of our offense with his legs and his strong arm, but —in Purdy—the Niners stumbled upon a quarterback who instead has raised the offense’s floor right now. And for a team that went to the Super Bowl in 2019 and has been knocking on the door every season since the right now of it all is vitally important.

It pains me how much Lance’s journey with the Niners parallels James Wiseman’s with the Warriors. This is the drawback of the “two timelines” strategy but on a smaller scale. It’s not that it can’t work, it’s that your margin for error has shrunk exponentially. Wiseman’s rookie year—when Klay was out and the team was basically running tryouts for who could hack it alongside Steph and Draymond for their championship run the next season—was his time to make mistakes and grow. But it took him a while. Then he got banged up. Then he missed the entirety of his sophomore year. Months later, the ever-closing nature of championship windows meant the Warriors’ patience was up, and Wiseman had to be traded. It didn’t matter that the idea of a 7-3 pogo stick as a rim runner and post protector was exactly what the Warriors needed to elevate their system and cement their status as a front-line contender because that was still just an idea. And the future had finally become too far from the present. 

I don’t blame either franchise for either pick. You take your swings, you trust your scouting departments, and you aim for stars at positions you’re lacking in when you’re picking high because you never wanna be picking that high again. The teams that have been lauded for being frugal with their spending and accumulating picks always get back slaps from the analytics bros, but they also don’t win anything. I love draft picks more than most, but when you putter around trying to be conservative and waiting for things to fall into your laps at the behest of “market value spending,” you quickly become the Colts—a team that always had the most cap space and great draft capital but collapsed like a house of cards before ever threatening contention and are now in a top-down rebuild. At the time, the Chiefs “overspent” when they moved up to #10 to draft Patrick Mahomes. So too did the Bills when they hopped to #7 for Josh Allen. You take your swings and you live with the consequences.

But in Wiseman—and now in Lance—we’ve seen two supreme athletes with truncated college careers (Wiseman’s by the NCAA, Lance’s by COVID), who were brought in to revolutionize a system that is already humming at a championship level, but whose lack of immediately meshing play styles and terrible injury luck made them miss the window they were afforded. Because when you’re on a rebuilding team, you can fuck around in the back of the class and eventually figure your shit out. After all, part of this time is for roster culling and everyone else is figuring their shit out with you. But when you’re learning on a contender, you’re in an advanced placement class, and you can get left behind in a hurry. That window for you to prove yourself is minuscule.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from both of these cases is that when you’re swinging for a home run-type player, you’d better make sure that what he can do now has a role in the system you already have in place. If Wiseman excelled as a pick-and-roll target off the jump, he could have at least settled into that particular role as the rest of his game came along. There would have been more patience for his future development because he had a function in the present rotation. Likewise, if Lance was comfortable executing the short game, then the Niners could let him take his time sharpening the physical tools that they drafted him for in the first place. Reps would lead to more reps, which would in turn lead to more development and a better chance of each player reaching their sizeable potential.

I don’t think this means Lance’s career in the NFL is over, and I’m much more bullish on his prospects than Wiseman’s. Lance is still only 23 and younger than nine of the rookies currently on the Niners’ roster. He’s a smart guy and a strong locker room presence who seems to approach the game the right way. And he still has all those physical tools that made him so impressive out of college. But this dude needs reps. We knew that when he was drafted, yet for some reason people are shocked by his lack of development without them. 19 starts into his NFL career, Jalen Hurts was still a guy completing 17 passes a game and turning the ball over on low volume and low efficiency. Josh Allen—the poster child for strong-armed mobile developmental QBs—had 27 NFL starts before his runner-up MVP year. In the last game before he broke out as one of the best QBs in the league, Josh Allen did THIS. With one minute left in the fourth quarter! In the playoffs!

If I told you three years ago that Lance wasn’t going to be a plus-level NFL quarterback four starts into his career, you would have said, “Well, yeah, obviously.” The problem is that you would have hoped he was queuing up his fifth start sometime in 2021, or—at worst—September of 2022. Instead, we’re rapidly approaching September 2023, and Lance is stuck at four career starts for the foreseeable future.

In a system like the Falcons’—where he could realistically start right now—it’s not hard to imagine Lance piloting Arthur Smith’s run-first deep play action offense with bombs to Pitts and London while working off the gravitational pull of Bijan Robinson. Due to that, a Ryan Tannehill-esque mid-career emergence is far from out of the question. In fact, both Tannehill—a converted wide receiver—and the 49ers’ own Alex Smith—who had a bumpy transition as the first modern shotgun spread quarterback to make the move to the NFL—share a number of developmental traits and hurdles with Lance. But the only way Lance fulfills his potential is by playing meaningful snaps in games that matter. And the only place he can get those snaps is outside of Santa Clara.

So What Happens Next?

Despite all this, I think there’s a likely chance we just keep him. Whether that means we move him before the trade deadline when teams are desperate or starting to “evaluate young talent” (aka phone it in) or after the season, I don’t know, but the “move him already!” crowd should chill for a number of reasons. 

First off, cutting him is out of the question, as it would mean releasing an asset for no reason at the sport’s most important position AND it would actually lose us money because of the massive dead cap infraction that we’d incur. You just don’t cut guys for no reason unless they are locker room cancers. Unless Lance just demands it—which doesn’t sound like something he’d do—words cannot describe how stupid this would be. 

Next, there’s everything I already said about our terrible injury-luck at quarterback. We have an undersized quarterback coming off a major injury and a backup with a history of minor injuries. Having a good third quarterback is evidently much more important to us than everyone else. Brandon Allen is an excellent fourth quarterback. He’s also worse than Trey Lance. And we needed five quarterbacks last year. I’m not pretending we’ll be able to stash Allen on the practice squad as our fourth quarterback, but I’m also not pretending he’s better than Lance.

Early reports on the finances of a trade have been erratic, to say the least, but I believe trading Lance would save us less than $1M this year—since he’s already been paid out his training camp roster bonus—and $5.31M next year. So it makes a lot of sense that Lance—if he’s still QB3 by the end of the year—won’t be on the team a year from now, but the push to move him immediately is lessened due to how little money we’d save this season.

But what does his trade market look like? I’m not sure anyone knows. How little he’s played and how late we are in training camp certainly knocks his current value. Basically, every team—even those with terrible QB rooms (Falcons, Bucs)—have recently named their 2023 starters, and going back on that immediately with a trade for a dude who doesn’t know any of the offense is pretty sus. Additionally, anyone with a young QB who they want to be the face of their franchise won’t bring in Lance because the specter of his ability will be a bit too bright given the very unique circumstances that have led to this situation. Yes, Lance is a former high-draft pick quarterback who lost his job, but he lost it due to injury and hasn’t had time to develop. Unlike someone like Mitch Trubisky—who had four years of starting to show what he couldn’t do—or Zach Wilson—who got 22 starts before he was actively replaced by others on his team and then Aaron Rodgers—Lance hasn’t been able to prove what he can or can’t do. And, just like when drafting a quarterback in the first place, that means his value will vary greatly depending on who you ask.

Also, who are the Niners willing to trade with? They want to do best by Lance but they certainly won’t be trading him to anyone in-division—even if every single one of them would be interested. But what about someone within the conference? While the Falcons have Desmond Ridder—and won’t make a move due to reasons discussed above—Lance is kind of the perfect fit for what they want to do offensively. The Bucs? It would make sense to bring in a guy with better upside than the motley crue they’ve got at quarterback—even if it takes him a while to learn the offense—but they might be keen to #Collapse4Caleb on the back of FrankenBakerTrask before firing Todd Bowles and doing a franchise reset. Washington is probably in the same boat, although Sam Howell has looked surprisingly competent through the preseason. It would be very Washington of them to win just enough games to miss out on the one or two big-name quarterbacks in this upcoming draft. The Vikings? They have a single year left on Kirk Cousins’ deal and a Lance-friendly offense, and having a potential future starter learning under Cousins could be smart—especially after they already jettisoned theoretical incumbent Kellen Mond. And while I expect them to regress this year, they should certainly be competitive enough to be clear of the top handful of picks needed to acquire a bluechipper QB next April. Similarly, the Broncos could use some insurance in case Russ is as washed as he’s looked the past year, but his contract is so overwhelming they’re probably just content to blow up the stadium ala The Dark Knight Rises and rebuild it once the dead cap space clears. After all, we may adopted the darkness, but Sean Payton was born in it. That’s why he did that bounty scandal that everyone forgets about. 

Realistically, I think the right situation could net as high as a second-day pick, but I don’t know if that situation exists at the moment. I’d say hold him—at least until the trade deadline, if not through the season. While his value could increase near the trade deadline and will almost certainly drop after the season, the market could still be healthier than it is right now. And you need a healthy market (or someone bidding against themselves) to increase return. The Niners have been very frank about wanting to do what’s best for Lance, so perhaps they move him for a late-round pick just to give him that change of scenery. But if we’re looking at a return in the 5th round or later, I don’t see how we benefit from moving him now versus waiting it out. For all the reasons I’ve already said, the kid can still get better. And while Purdy should 100% be our starter given what he’s accomplished, it seems foolish to move on from Lance for minimal gain.

It’s also worth noting somewhere here that if Purdy wasn’t around and this was a competition for the starting job, I think Lance would have an edge over Darnold. When it comes to the starter, you can take a bit more of a swing on upside and trajectory when everything else is relatively equal. But with a backup, you’re looking to mitigate damage and prevent the floor from falling out. At this point in their respective developments, Darnold is just much more experienced and the safer option.

If Lance is a guy who takes a bit of time to warm up and needs practice reps to succeed, he’s not getting those as the backup QB. Although I’m sure it’s far from most peoples’ minds at the moment, running the scout team once the season starts may actually be the best way for Lance to develop (other than starting, obviously). Backups don’t get many live reps in practice, and—if all goes according to plan—they don’t play at all in games. While QB3 plays even less in games, they get a ton of reps running the scout team through the week, and—as stated ad nauseam—anything that gets Lance more reps aids in his development. It’s the consolation prize of all consolation prizes, but it’s something.

While this is undoubtedly bummer news for our fanbase and for a dude who I think we’ve all been rooting for, try not to get too down on Trey or the Niners. It’s easy to poke holes at some of our high-profile misses when you forget how many lower-profile dudes we’ve unearthed and developed into All-Pros. There’s a very real chance we have the single most talented roster in the NFL this year, and—quite literally—you can’t have the most talented roster in the NFL and be as bad at talent evaluation as the comment boards say. 

The last thing I’ll leave you with is this. Over the past six seasons—or the entirety of the time Shanahan and Lynch have helmed the Niners—these are the quarterbacks who have piloted their teams to conference championship games and the number of champ games they’ve played in:

5 - Patrick Mahomes
3 - Jimmy Garoppolo/Brock Purdy, Tom Brady
2 - Aaron Rodgers, Joe Burrow
1 - Drew Brees, Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Matt Stafford, Ryan Tannehill, Nick Foles, Case Keenum, Jared Goff, Blake Bortles

That’s four slam-funk first-ballot Hall of Famers, five of the past six league MVPs, and the top four MVP vote-getters of 2022. And Jimmy G/Brock Purdy have combined for more appearances than almost all of them. This is despite ShanaLynch taking over what was unquestionably the worst team and roster in the NFL when they arrived. 

We have proven we can win without elite quarterback play. Perhaps we’re the only team that’s proven that in today’s NFL. And while Lance was meant to be that elite quarterback, break that habit, and make things easier for us, hopefully, that number next to Purdy can keep increasing. Maybe—a year (or ten) from now—his name won’t look so weird in the company he’s surrounded by. Only time will tell. But for now, we’re in good hands. So take a deep breath, relax, and get excited for September 10th.

Go Niners 👍🏈

2023 NFL Draft Recap

this photo stolen DIRECTLY from the Niners’ official website

It’s tougher to get excited about the draft when we’re not picking until the end of the third round, but it only takes some bad luck and one trash draft to derail the fortunes of a contender (AJ Jenkins and LaMichael James anyone?). Luckily, it doesn’t seem like we’ll have to worry about that. While the nine dudes we added over the weekend (and the incoming UDFA crop) didn’t make up the flashiest haul, they look to be a very solid group of contributors.

A couple of items of note:

If you ever HAVE to be short on early picks, this was a good year for it, as this draft class was lacking in elite-level talent but was deep through the middle rounds. That timing was fortuitous but also intentional from our front office. As a team that’s coming off back-to-back NFC Championships, is returning all but two starters (three if you count Moseley), and had already filled most of those starting positions before the draft even started, there aren’t a lot of snaps up for grabs heading into 2023. And with teams typically knowing the strengths and weaknesses of any given draft class a year or two out from the draft itself, the Niners were certainly intentional in which years’ picks got traded in the Lance and CMC deals. With our payroll pushed up against the cap and some tough decisions coming next off-season, I wouldn’t expect us to be as willing to part with high-end draft picks leading up to next year’s draft. From a fan perspective and a team-building one, that’s certainly a good thing.

Football character and locker room culture fit has been a huge part of our evaluation process ever since the whiffs on Rueben Foster and Joe Williams in year one under ShanaLynch, and this class is no exception. While our obsession with fit and mentality sometimes leads us to pass on guys who are athletically superior but have question marks in their character or approach, that stubbornness has also been a major factor in explaining the unreal hit rate of our Day 3 and UDFA pickups. This year’s class is absolutely littered with team captains and guys who college coaches can’t stop raving about as team leaders and tone setters. 

Schematic fit was excellent in this class as well. Nearly all of our draftees are guys whose so-called weaknesses can be hidden by what they’ll be asked to do in our particular schemes. A few of them (the seventh-round fullback in particular) literally couldn’t have asked for a better NFL fit. 

Finally, our class has a ton of guys who could become special teams standouts. It makes sense because special teams are the best place to stash a guy who might get swooped off your practice squad without exposing him to offensive or defensive reps that he’s not ready for. As stated above, there are not a lot of roster spots available on our team, but special teams has—and will always be—a great way for young dudes who are still learning the craft to carve out a role so that they can stick around long enough to see offensive or defensive snaps.

Now, onto the picks.

S, Ji’Ayir Brown, Penn State (Round 3, Pick 87)

Our first pick of the draft, and—based on value and talent—probably our best. Ji’Ayir Brown sliding down enough to still be available at the bottom of the third was, for many media types and draft pundits, the most optimistic scenario the Niners could have hoped for given where we were picking. We had to package some picks to move up 12 spots to secure him, but it was well worth the cost.

Brown could have the best instincts of any safety in this draft class, and he has shown tremendous versatility playing the type of interchangeable safety role that we so commonly employ. Brown’s 10 interceptions over the past two years were more than anyone else in FBS football, he led the Nittany Lions in tackles last season, and—despite playing safety—he racked up 4.5 sacks last year as well.

He’s got excellent ball skills in coverage, is heady and physical against both the pass and the run, and fills hard when taking on ball carriers. He was also a team captain this past year, is a known leader and tone-setter, and won Penn State’s “Iron Lion” award for his work in the weight room. 

So why did he slide far enough that we decided to package a few picks and get him in the back half of the third round? Brown, like many hard-hitting safeties, needs to play a little bit more disciplined and under control. Sometimes he’s in such a hurry to make a play or a hit that he takes a bad angle or fails to wrap up. But really what made him slide the most is that he ran a 4.65 at the combine and a 4.58 at his pro day. Many NFL scouting departments don’t think safeties can be high-level players in the NFL if they don’t have plus speed. Of course, instincts and trigger speed will make a guy play a lot faster than his timed speed, and Lynch noted that based on our scouting department’s speed tracking data and Penn State’s GPS tracking, Brown was actually the second fastest of all safeties in this draft class.

If Brown sounds a lot like a safety we drafted in the fifth round out of USC two years ago, the comparisons are valid. Brown will likely start the season backing up Tashaun Gipson with plans for Brown to take over the starting role in his sophomore season. In the immediate future, he’ll likely be getting snaps in our three-safety looks and—given how strong he is as a blitzer and near the LOS—might get some looks as a big nickel as well. 

K, Jake Moody, Michigan (Round 3, Pick 99)

According to the internet, all the good vibes from the Brown pick were quickly extinguished when the Niners picked a kicker just 12 spots later. But I understand the decision. 

Robbie Gould is a free agent and is looking to play closer to home. Our trade for Zane Gonzalez was for a late round swap two years from now and includes no guaranteed money. And this was supposedly an exceptionally good class of kickers. 

The Niners probably wanted to take Moody in the fourth round and avoid making him the highest-picked kicker since (gulp) Roberto Aguayo was picked by the Bucs in the second round back in 2015. For reference, Aguayo was the most accurate kicker in college football history, won the Lou Groza Award was a true freshman, declared for the draft after three years, then was promptly out of the league after converting only 71% of his kicks as a rookie. That said, the Niners didn’t have a fourth-round pick this year, and—given that the Patriots drafted another kicker just 13 picks later—there was a 0% chance Moody would be available the next time we were on the board. If Moody was our guy and we wanted him, we had to pick him with one of the picks at the bottom of the third round.

While Robbie’s regular-season efficiency was starting to waver a bit in his year-40 season, he’s still a career-perfect kicker in the playoffs, and—for a team with aspirations of contending for a Super Bowl—the coaching staff doesn’t want to have to worry about their kicker in high-pressure situations. Now, we just have to hope they picked the right guy.

FWIW, I’ve seen Moody kick a lot and that dude was as close to guaranteed as a college kicker can possibly be. In 2021 he converted 92% of his field goals en route to being named the Lou Groza Award Winner. In 2022, his efficiency dipped down to 82% (mostly due to being 3-of-7 on kicks over 50 yards), but he led the nation in field goals made. Just as importantly, his clutch kicking was immaculate. I can’t actually remember him faltering late in any close game, with a game-winner in icy conditions against Illinois, a big kick against Michigan State after the dreaded three consecutive timeouts to ice him, and converting a 59-yarder to end the half in the college football semifinal against TCU. The only 4th quarter field goal I can remember him missing was against Ohio State last year, and that one was from 57 yards out.

The other kicker in the running was the 2022 Lou Groza Award Winner, Chad Ryland (who ended up going to the Patriots). Ryland played at Eastern Michigan for four years before taking a grad transfer at Maryland. He’s got a bigger leg than Moody and touchbacks should be the norm for Ryland, but—given he played at Eastern and Maryland—he’s been far less tested in pressure situations. Also, Moody’s overall accuracy is better over a greater sample size. Ryland has more potential for booming field goals, but on anything under 50 yards, Moody was 48-of-52 (92.3%) over the past two years. 

After Aguayo flamed out in such spectacular fashion, it’s hard to say anything is certain when it comes to kickers transitioning to the NFL. And if Tucker Kraft or Marte Mapu—two guys I really liked—were still around at 99, then I’d have been more upset about picking a specialist where we did. But given our options were drafting Moody or Ryland at the bottom of the third or—at best—settling for the third-best kicker in this draft class, I feel much better about securing the guy we like the most. And I definitely feel better about this than when we took a punter in the fourth round.

Even if drafting specialists before the late rounds is a total boner kill. 

TE, Cameron Latu, Alabama (Round 3, Pick 101)

If Brown and Moody were known quantities in college, Latu is much more of a developmental wild card, as his draft grades ranged from the third-to-fifth round. I don’t know the actual stats, but this certainly seemed like the most tight end-heavy draft in recent memory. The depth of the class was hyped up for months in the lead-up to the draft, and 15 were drafted this weekend, a whopping 8 of them in rounds two and three. Latu capped that run at the end of the third and is intriguing both for what he’s accomplished and what he could be able to do down the road.

At 6-4, 242 pounds, Latu excels in the red zone, catching 12 touchdown passes over the past two seasons (8 in 2021, which was an Alabama TE record). While scouts were hoping he’d springboard his junior year into a massive 2022, he missed two games with an ankle/foot injury early in the season, which nagged him through the rest of the campaign.

While Latu played both in-line and split out in the slot and has reps blocking in schemes similar to ours (Bama apparently lifted a bunch of Niners runs after seeing how successful they were), he’s not the biggest or the most explosive player. He’s smoother than he is fast, and his paltry two missed tackles last season means he’s far from qualified for membership into the YAC Bros. 

Since this is the highest we’ve picked a tight end since Vance McDonald, the Niners are clearly banking on Latu’s development unlocking another level of skill and—with increased knowledge and confidence—play speed than he’s shown thus far. Considering Latu was recruited to Alabama as a defensive end and didn’t switch over to offense until 2019, it’s a reasonable assumption. The Niners also believe that Latu’s 2022 injury depressed his draft stock a bit, as his play picked up the further away he got from the injury. This too seems fair, as Latu—in his first-ever start against Miami in 2021—broke as many tackles on a single touchdown catch as he did in the entirety of 2022. His junior tape shows a knack for open-field running that his senior film does not, and—even if he’s not a super sudden athlete—there’s likely more YAC potential than his athletic profile and senior stats would indicate. All that said, was this a reach?

If we were dead set on a tight end, then the other tight ends clustered around Latu included Davis Allen (Clemson), Josh Whyle (Cincinnati), and Zack Kuntz (Old Dominion). I’m okay saying Kuntz would NOT have been a better pick in the third. I know people love his size and athleticism, but he’s very much a project and may never have the power and bulk to be a solid blocker in the NFL. He also went in the seventh round. We need a tight end who can play sub snaps now, and—due to the fact that we ask our tight ends to block a lot—that guy can’t be a poor man’s Jimmy Graham-type. That need for an immediate dual-threat might have also pushed out Josh Whyle (who went to the Titans in the fifth). Whyle probably should have put up better numbers given the competition he was against, and while his height/weight/speed measurables are quite impressive, he seems to need some more time to develop. The most intriguing “what if” is probably Davis Allen, who is the least athletic of the bunch. Allen is a jump ball and contested catch maven—which could pair nicely with Kittle as a second tight end—and has some blocking potential. Equally as important (for this theoretical exercise), he went at the end of the fifth round. So we would have had a shot at him later. Latu seems like he has higher potential than Allen and is a bit safer and more pro-ready than Kuntz and Whyle, but—again—we’re comparing him to three dudes who were drafted in the fifth round or later. And that’s not including the guys we didn’t pick at other positions—Kelee Ringo, Blake Freeland of BYU—who went early in the fourth. Like with Moody, there’s a chance that missing a fourth rounder in this draft made us pick Latu earlier than we needed to.

Hopefully, Latu is ready to play early, because while he won’t be asked to be a full-time starter anytime soon, we’ve been looking for years for a guy who can play genuine snaps as a blocker and receiver to give George Kittle—who turns 30 this off-season—a breather. Woerner and Kroft were always more blockers. Ross Dwelley was more of a receiver/h-back. In Latu, we have someone who can theoretically handle both. In addition to prolonging Kittle’s career by giving him valuable snaps off, Latu will hopefully make for a nice weapon in double-tight formations in the red zone. 

CB, Darrell Luter Jr., South Alabama (Round 5, Pick 155)

Darrell Luter greatly resembles the cadre of other cornerbacks who we’ve taken in the 5th round over the years. DJ Reed (2018), Deommodore Lenoir (2021), Samuel Womack (2022) were all—like Luter—outside corners in college who were undersized in some way, who the Niners believed could find a place in the nickel or—if they proved they could overcome their size limitations—outside. 

Like Womack last year, Luter is speedy and long (his wingspan is greater than Richard Sherman’s), but could stand to add a little bulk and will face a sizable jump in competition after coming from a Group of 5 school. Luter is one of those guys who really fits our scheme, as he’s much better playing press and using his length to jam receivers at the LOS than he is sitting back in off-man. He’s got the speed and fluidity to excel at both, but he’s savvier through the route and at the catch point when he can body up with guys down the field. With 22 pass deflections and 5 picks over the past two years, his ball skills are solid, and he’s willing to mix it up as a tackler as well (even if adding some weight might help in that regard).

If we assume Isaiah Oliver gets the first shot to take over in the nickel, then Luter should slot in with the cluster of young cornerbacks who we’ve been cross-training both outside and in. That group includes Womack, Ambry Thomas (2021), and Qwuantrezz Knight (2022). I wouldn’t expect him to break through this year, but—given none of those three names he’s in competing with have established themselves as consistent contributors—the competition should be wide open for sub package snaps and next man up duties. Given Brown has some nickel capabilities and we’re likely to keep four safeties, there’s probably only space for five corners on our active roster. With three of those spots (Charvarius Ward, Lenoir, Oliver) seemingly accounted for, we’re looking at 3 or 4 dudes competing for two remaining spots and at least one pick from the past few drafts getting demoted to the practice squad or cut.

DE, Robert Beal Jr., Georgia (Round 5, Pick 173)

If you have any questions as to why Georgia is coming off back-to-back national championships, the fact that we’re drafting a guy in the fifth round who was only able to start ten games for them over the past two years is a good indicator. Beal was a stand-up OL in Georgia’s 3-4 scheme but played plenty as a rolled-down edge on passing downs. Despite being a high four-star recruit out of high school, he never cracked the full-time starting lineup, but it’s clear to see why he was recruited so highly. This dude has jets.

At 6’3 247 pounds, Beal ran a 4.44 at the combine (his fellow Georgia LB and pass rusher Nolan Smith ran a 4.39) and excels firing off the line, blowing past tackles with speed, and running the arc towards the quarterback. Despite having only ten starts over the past two years, Beal racked up 9.5 sacks during that time (more than Smith ever had) and drips with potential. And it’s not like he wasn’t productive. His 6.5 sacks in 2021 actually led Georgia’s team, despite sharing the field with first-round draft picks Jordan Davis, Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith, Devonta Wyatt, and Travon Walker—the #1 overall pick last year.

But the lack of starts points to expected issues and weaknesses. Beal doesn’t really have much of a pass rush plan or sequence of moves if he can’t beat his blocker immediately, and his recognition and technical skills could use some work. There are also some character flags that are at least worth mentioning. Beal planned to enroll early at Georgia but his multiple high school transfers scuttled those plans and—once he enrolled in school—he had to redshirt his first year due to being academically ineligible. He was also arrested on a misdemeanor charge in April of 2019, but it was for marijuana possession so… kinda who cares? Nothing major, but it’s worth mentioning when the rest of this class is filled with multi-year team captains.

Beal is another great scheme fit because the Niners have been looking for a genuine speed rusher opposite Bosa to at least moonlight in some Turbo sets ever since Dee Ford’s back rendered him perennially on the IR. Beal immediately becomes our most explosive edge rusher, and while Drake Jackson and Clelin Ferrell should get the majority of the edge snaps opposite Bosa, the hope is Beal can get some run on pure passing downs. 

Long-term, we’d love if Beal could follow a similar career path as Josh Uche of the Patriots. Uche was an edge rusher specialist at Michigan who had to rotate out more than fans would have liked due to schematic fit and personnel issues around him. After getting picked in the second round by the Pats in 2020, his playing time slowly accumulated before he broke out with 11.5 sacks last season (despite starting zero games). 

We have three defensive ends (Kerry Hyder, Clelin Ferrell, Austin Bryant) up for free agency next year (I’m not counting Bosa because there is no chance he gets to free agency), and while we’ve had a lot of success with our one-year rentals and veteran reclamation projects, the Niners also want to be able to build dudes up from within the program who can contribute for more than a season at a time. Additionally, we need juice on the edge, and juice is hard to find this late in the draft, so it’s not hard to see why we picked up Beal. While he’s very much a work-in-progress, if there’s a place where he can maximize his talent it’s in the wide 9 while playing under Kris Kocurek and Darryl Tapp.

LB, Dee Winters, TCU (Round 6, Pick 216)

Due to his position (off-ball linebacker) and smaller size (5’10 227 pounds) Winters slipped lower than most would have expected in the draft. He doesn’t have the size or bulk to regularly fight in phone booths and his stack-and-shed ability will likely never be great given those limitations. That said, Winters is a versatile, high-energy player who can run, hit, and make splash plays.

A senior captain who started every game for TCU over the past three seasons, Winters is a high-effort dude with good speed (4.49 forty) who is tough at the point of attack and is an excellent blitzer from the linebacker position (7.5 sacks last year). Our scheme relies heavily on linebackers with range who can play in space, and while Winters is a bit more stiff-hipped and less explosive than the dynamic duo we currently employ, it’s not hard to see how he could carve out a sub package role in our scheme by continuing to improve his read and react speed.

Since he isn’t an S-tier athlete, Winters’ lack of size may put a cap on his ceiling as a pro, but given how many former safeties we’ve shaped into linebackers, I wouldn’t count him out as a long-term regular contributor on defense. In the meantime, he should make an immediate splash on special teams, as he was a regular on TCU’s coverage teams and his speed at the linebacker position should make him a shoe-in for one of the gunner spots.

H-Back, Brayden Willis, Oklahoma (Round 7, Pick 247)

While listed as a tight end on draft boards, Willis is totally the heir apparent to Juice at fullback. Playing fullback, tight end, and wildcat QB, Willis had ten carries this year, threw a 24-yard touchdown, and led the Sooners in receiving with 514 yards and 7 touchdowns. While the idea of a tight end/fullback leading Oklahoma in receiving with 500 yards makes you wonder what year we’re in, Willis is a true do-it-all fullback.

He’s an excellent blocker, including on seal blocks—which should endear him quickly to Shanahan and Bobby Turner—and he should quickly pick up the gun run and wing blocking stuff we love to deploy given what he was asked to do in college. Coaches rave about his work ethic and leadership abilities. And while he’s no supreme athlete, he’s a nice route runner and natural hands catcher, lining up often in the slot but even catching the occasional goal line fade while at Oklahoma. This is the schematic fit to end all schematic fits. 

Now remember, this is a backup fullback we just drafted. Heir apparent or not, even Juice—the best fullback in the game—only sees the field for about half of our offensive snaps, so Willis will need to find a way to stick on the active roster until it’s his time to shine. There’s a world where we roster four tight ends and both rookies make the active roster, and Willis could attempt to carve out a role as a Ross Dwelley replacement in year one, but that’s a lot to ask of a seventh-round rookie. Unsurprisingly, Willis’ best path to avoiding practice squad relegation (and potential poaching given how many Shanny disciples there are running around the league now), is via special teams, where he logged 845 career snaps in college. Most importantly, if he were to make the active team this year, we could have the absolutely ludicrous distinction of being the only team in the NFL with TWO fullbacks on their 53-man roster. 

WR, Ronnie Bell, Michigan (Round 7, Pick 253)

A five-year college player, two-year captain, and highly respected team leader in Ann Arbor (he was a player-coach in 2021 after blowing out his ACL in the first game of the season), Bell came back for his victory lap and set career highs in nearly every receiving category last season while leading Michigan in receiving for the third time in the past four seasons. 

He’ll block in the run game (he played for Jim Harbaugh after all), is slippery and smooth as a route runner, and—if you squint—you can see shades of a smaller Kendrick Bourne in his game. Bell doesn’t excel at any one thing—he’s not going to run away from anyone deep and he lacks ideal size and strength—and he’ll need to get better in tighter spaces and tighter windows, but his approach and savvy could let him carve out a role as a reliable first- and second-level receiver after some development.

While Danny Gray was a third-round pick last year, our fifth receiver position is largely up for grabs heading into OTAs and training camp. We’d love for Gray to seize the reins given his raw, unadulterated speed, but don’t be shocked if Bell or another training camp participant pushes him for that final spot.

LB, Jalen Graham, Purdue (Round 7, Pick 255)

Our last pick of the draft, Jalen Graham was an intelligent and versatile team leader for the Boilermakers who was asked to do a lot while being surrounded by less-than-ideal talent. More of a SAM linebacker who is better when he can be playing forward against the run, Graham is probably the most curious fit of all the players we drafted. While he looks the part and is quick to diagnose and trigger downhill, Graham’s lack of play speed and fluidity in space doesn’t seem to matchup all that well with what we ask of our linebackers when it comes to coverage (even our SAM linebackers). That said, Graham’s got a special teams background, and—as stated ad nauseam—that could be his best shot at sticking on the roster.

UDFAs

The Niners almost always find contributors from their undrafted free agent signings. Below are UDFAs who started or made major contributions during the six ShanaLynch years.

2022: RB Jordan Mason
2021: none
2020: RB JaMychal Hasty, RB Salvon Ahmed (poached from PS and started 4 games as a rookie), LB Jonas Griffith (traded due to lack of roster space to Broncos, starting 12 games over past 4 games there).
2019: LB Azeez Al-Shaair, DT Kevin Givens, LB Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles
2018: CB Emmanuel Moseley, RB Jeff Wilson, TE Ross Dwelley
2017: RB Matt Breida, WR Kendrick Bourne, QB Nick Mullens

It’s obviously harder now to make an imprint with the current quality of our team, but that’s enough of a track record to where it’s worth mentioning anyone who got the call for our 90-man off-season roster.

While our lack of offensive linemen selected as a major vote of confidence for Colton McKivitz (and, I guess, Jaylon Moore as well), we scooped up a bunch of dudes on the OL after the draft. 

The headliner is Joey Fisher (Shepherd). He’s older (26) because he took three years off from football to work as a locksmith(!) with his dad before Shepherd gave him a shot. He returned the favor by starting three years (would have been four if they hadn’t canceled football during COVID) and being named a two-time D2 All-American. Shepherd absolutely has the size, body, power, and mentality to be an NFL lineman. The jump up in competition will be massive and they’ll have to figure out if he’s a guard or a tackle, but this is a high-upside pick who most thought would get his name called midway through Saturday. Fellow OL Corey Luciano (Washington) and Ilm Manning (Hawaii) will likely be interior guys, even if Manning started 60 games over 5 years at left tackle for the Rainbow Warriors. 

Unable to draft one in the third round, the Niners added two running backs: Ronald Awatt (UTEP) and Khalan Laborn (Marshall). Laborn was a five-star recruit at Florida State who blew out his knee, played a bit, got kicked off the team, finished his bachelor’s degree as a student, then played one year at Marshall to deplete his eligibility. In that one year he rushed for 1513 yards and 16 TDs on 5.0 ypc (including 163 on five yards a pop at Notre Dame). Despite drafting Brayden Wilis, we did our annual duty and added another fullback to the 90-man, picking up Jack Colletto (Oregon State), who was a first-team All-Pac-12 selection as an all-purpose player in 2022 while winning the Paul Hornung Award for college football’s most versatile player. Colletto arrived in Corvallis as a QB, then played linebacker, before moving over to short-yardage running back. He’s probably the only player in college football with 50+ career passing attempts, rushing attempts, and tackles, and at the Senior Bowl he practiced on both offense (FB) and defense (LB), switching jerseys between practice periods.

Elsewhere on offense, we added receivers Shae Wyatt (Tulane) and Jadakis Bonds (Hampton), who—at 6’3 and 206 pounds—racked up 34 receiving touchdowns over four years with the Pirates. 

On the defensive side, we picked up former Trey Lance teammate and two-time All-American defensive end Spencer Waege (North Dakota St.). He missed the last 12 games of 2021 with a torn ACL but came back this year to set career highs in sacks and TFLs while being named a first-team All-American. After playing at 265 he bulked up to 295 for the draft, so we’re crossing our fingers he can do a poor man’s Armstead impersonation.

Finally, we added linebacker Mariano Sori-Marin (Minnesota) and defensive backs Avery Young (Rutgers) and D’Shawn Jamison (Texas). Starting 40 games (and playing in 60) over five years, Jamison has strong athletic traits and stickiness in coverage, but is overall lacking in size and strength. He could wind up a developmental nickel, and—once again—it doesn’t help that he has extensive special teams experience, both as a return man (2 kicks and 1 punt returned for touchdowns in his career) and on coverage units (blocked a punt last year). 

I’m sure there will be other names added as the days pass (we’re expected to add a fourth QB at some point), but that’s all as of now, and this write-up is already hilariously long. Congratulations to all the young men who we’ve brought into the fold and best of luck to them!

Go Niners! 👍🏈

Off-Season Preview: OL

The #1 way that 2022 could have gone sideways was if our new-look interior line hadn’t been up to the task. Luckily, our three new starters played about as well as we could have asked for, and—just as importantly—our OL was mostly healthy throughout the year. This helped power an offense that rushed for the seventh-most yards in the league and allowed the sixth-fewest sacks. However, our OL wasn’t the mauling run blocking unit of years past and we definitely got heated up a bit in our last two matchups—even if those games were against the two best pass rushes in football. So while we were all pleasantly surprised by our OL’s performance last year, improvements are still needed.

Offensive Tackle

UFA: Mike McGlinchey
RFA/ERFA: Colton McKivitz (RFA)

Trent Williams continues to be the best offensive tackle in football, and it is not particularly close. According to PFF, he was once again the top-rated tackle, tops in run blocking, and fifth in pass pro. While his overall rating dipped from his 2021 level of “this is the best rating anyone has ever gotten at any position” to just plain “this is the best tackle in the world right now,” we have been and continue to be thrilled to have Williams rag-dolling grown men on our blindside. 

Although there’s been rumors of a flirtation with retirement bouncing about the internet, it doesn’t seem like something Williams is genuinely contemplating at the moment, and—on the flip side—there’s a decent chance the Niners actually approach Williams about a contract restructuring to free up more cash in the present. 2023 marks the last of the guaranteed money on Williams’ contract, so if he’s confident he wants to play for a few more years, a re-structuring could make sense for both parties and open up quite a bit of cap space. 

Opposite Williams, the much-maligned Mike McGlinchey put together a solid-but-unspectacular season. He’ll always be a better run blocker than pass protector, but he’s put in a lot of work over the past years to limit the big whiffs in pass pro that much of the fanbase has known him for. He is, for all intents and purposes, an above-average-to-good right tackle who is narrowly on the right side of 30, and that means he’ll certainly have suitors on the open market. According to Spotrac, McGlinchey’s market value is an estimated $14.8M/year and that seems relatively accurate (if not on the low side). McGlinchey has been vocal about his interest in returning to the bay, where both his fiancee and many of his friends are from, but there’s a very real world where we get priced out of retaining his services. In the simplest of terms, we can definitely do worse than McGlinchey, and—unless one of our internal candidates or a mid-to-late round draft pick surpasses expectations—we won’t be able to do better without shelling out loads of cap space. So what’s the plan?

I’d say it’s a hair less than 50/50 we re-sign McGlinchey, with the team wanting him back but his price tag rising out of our range, but—first thing’s first—we’re going to re-sign Colton McKivitz. While he lost his spot as the team’s top backup tackle early in the year, there was some talk that was due to injury, and he played well in limited snaps this season. The second clubhouse leader to replace McGlinchey would be soon-to-be-third-year player Jaylon Moore, who started two games in place of Trent Williams last season and provides considerably more athletic upside at the position. Neither are slam dunk replacements as a full-time right tackle, but there’s absolutely a world where the Niners roll with that duo—hoping that two of them (plus any incoming rookies) could net a serviceable starter and a flexible backup or two behind him. 

If the Niners do plan to dip into the free agent market, there’s a number of different directions they could go:

NOTE: I’ll be referencing PFF’s scores in these write-ups because I am no OL expert, and a number of these teams I just don’t watch. I’m well aware that it’s not a perfect metric, but it is one of the only available statistical measures for linemen. So… better than nothing.

Kaleb McGary, Atlanta: A former first-round draft pick who was considered enough of a disappointment that Atlanta didn’t exercise his fifth-year option, McGary responded by posting a career year that saw him ranked as PFF’s fourth-best offensive tackle with a run blocking mark second only to our own Trent Williams. He’s a mauler in the run game with more power than lateral quickness, and that shows in his pass pro scores. While he vastly improved in that regard last year, his career-high 2022 marks in the passing game check in as a tick below McGlinchey’s career averages, and there’s always some worry that his play fit so well in Atlanta’s run-heavy scheme that he may be even more susceptible to pass rushers outside of it. We’d basically be swinging on a McGlinchey type with greater variance, and while McGary will likely command a lesser contract than our right tackle incumbent, given the market, I’m not sure the price difference between the two will be enough for us to warrant the move.  

Jermaine Eluemunor, Las Vegas: A London transplant who was late to football, Eluemunor entered the league as a raw prospect in 2017 (only 12 starts in college). After being a swing tackle across three different teams in his first five years in the league, he was finally given the reins at right tackle and posted a career year in 2022. He’s a big boy, but he moves well and has posted four straight years with pass pro scores above 70.0 (for reference, McGlinchey has eclipsed that mark only twice in his career). Like McGary above, it’s always worth taking a closer look when someone has a contract year bump. When that player has been in the league for a while, it’s another red flag that could point to timely variance rather than projected improvement. That said, Eluemunor’s raw status when he entered the league and his lack of starting opportunities until last season may actually help the likelihood that he’s on the upswing rather than peaking before a big contract. Perhaps it just took him a while to put it all together, and there’s a world where his price tag may be closer to that of a backup but with starter-level production.

Cameron Fleming, Denver: Another long-time journeyman swing tackle who played well when finally given a starting opportunity, Fleming has quietly put together two solid seasons in Denver. He doesn’t exactly excel at any one thing, and he’ll turn 31 just before next season starts, but he may be able to be had at a price tag more comparable to  a swing tackle competing for a starting job than a full-on starter. And at worst, he’d be a solid backup if he gets beat out. 

Andre Dillard, Philadelphia: Another former first-round pick, Dillard—due to opting out the COVID year—has only played three seasons in the NFL, and—due to the emergence of Jordan Mailata at left tackle—he’s never gotten the chance to really assert his ability (starting only 9 games over those three years). Coming out of Wazzu, the knock on him was his power in the run game, and that’s shown true in his grades. So it’s not hard to understand how he may have struggled to crack the rotation of one of the run-heaviest teams in the country. But Dillard’s primary weakness seems to be opportunity. He’s played well when he’s seen the field the past two seasons and is a plus plus athlete with an ideal tackle frame and feet. While he missed a big chunk of this year with a forearm injury and only played 37 snaps in 2022 (all of them at guard), there’s still a lot of potential in his game at (potentially) a very friendly price tag. 

While the Niners are still benefitting from rookie QB contracts, the big deals they dole out this off-season must take into account what our cap will look like two and three years for now. So it begs the question: how much are we willing to pay for good-but-not-great right tackle play? 

It’s tough to say “let’s take a step back” at the position given our struggles in pass pro against the Cowboys and the Eagles in the playoffs, this could be a situation where a spiking salary cap and a weak tackle market puts McGlinchey out of our range. 

Offensive Guard

UFA: none 
RFA/ERFA: none

Aaron Banks (of “five offensive snaps played as a rookie” fame) stepped into the starting lineup and basically held it down at left guard. Considering the player he replaced, that’s pretty impressive. Now, I wouldn’t say Banks blew me away in any facet of play, but given the consternation Niners fans had in his ability after such a quiet rookie season, boring is nothing to scoff at. 

On the right side, fourth-round rookie Spencer Burford rotated series with all-purpose swing man Daniel Brunskill. As a guy who played a lot of tackle in college and was considered somewhere between the two positions, Burford’s movement skills made him playable immediately, but his lack of experience, power, and polish led the coaching staff to rotating him with Brunskill so that the rookie could see how a seasoned vet approached things while simultaneously getting reps. It worked as well as anyone could have expected and hopefully sets up Burford for an impressive second-year leap. 

Realistically, it’s the second-year development (or in Banks’ case “second-year” development) that gives us the most hope for improvement along the offensive line. While Banks and Burford combined to allow only six sacks on the season, they were far from anchors in pass pro, and if boring is fine for year one as a starter, year two is when you want to see stronger play and specific traits that each player excels at. Due to both players’ age, their physical skill set, and the way the line got increasingly better and more cohesive as the year went on, there’s every reason to believe there’s a next step (or two) for each of our young starting guards. The big question is how big a step that will be and if both will be able to take it this off-season. 

I’d be remiss not to give a shout-out to Daniel Brunskill once again, who—no matter what we ask of him—always seems to be prepared for it. While Burford is expected to become the full-time starter at right guard next year, I’d assume the Niners bring back Brunskill. Both because I don’t think he’ll be particularly expensive and because he provides insurance at all five positions along the offensive line.

Elsewhere on the roster, rookie Nick Zakelj played mostly tackle last year but could kick inside to guard if needed. Although if we’re needing that next year, we’re probably in trouble. Also, blog favorite Jason Poe—last season’s scout team OL of the year—waits in the wings. While his height is lacking, his burst and overall ability is hugely intriguing. He could be a guard or a center, but if he can fight his way into a second-team position at either spot next year, that bodes very well for his future prospects.

Center

UFA: Jake Brendel
RFA/ERFA: none

Despite being thirty years old and on the roster for the past three seasons, Brendel had only played six snaps since he arrived in Santa Clara and was as much of a question mark as our two guards entering 2022. But Brendel acquitted himself nicely, holding the unit together, communicating effectively, and putting up the 7th-highest pass blocking rate of any center this past season. Like the guards, there was nothing in particular that he really excelled at, but he was solid and consistent throughout the year. The major difference between Brendel and the guards? Brendel is thirty years old and currently an unrestricted free agent.

Shanahan has always prioritized the importance of center play, and it’s tough to imagine him dumping a successful center after basically stashing him on the roster for three years without playing him. But the market complicates matters a little bit. Center is a position with few elite players and a fat middle class, meaning you could make the argument to go for a younger player with higher upside or you could say it’s not worth rocking the boat unless you’ve got a guy with top-5 ability in your sights. 

If Brendel departs and we add someone in free agency, there are a few options:

Ethan Pocic, Cleveland: Pocic was mid-at-best for the first four years of his career, finally started putting things together in year five in Seattle, then signed a one-year deal with the Browns last off-season and put up his best season by far. According to PFF, he was the league’s third-best center and fifth-best run-blocker. It’s worth noting that Pocic played under the tutelage of Bill Callahan—one of the best OL coaches in the league—and between two of the highest-paid guards in the NFL in Wyatt Teller and Joel Bitonio, so there’s a world where he’s no longer a top five center in another environment, but—at 27 years old—he will almost certainly be the most sought after center this off-season.  

Connor McGovern, NY Jets: McGovern has a strong track record over multiple years—putting up three top-10 positional rankings over the past four seasons—and the past two years have come running the same scheme that we do. McGovern turns 30 before next season, so we wouldn’t be getting more than a few months younger at the position, but he’s an option nonetheless.

Garrett Bradbury, Minnesota: A former first-rounder who also has familiarity within the greater Shanahan system, Bradbury was mid-at-best through his rookie contract before seeing an uptick in play in his first season in Kevin O’Connell’s re-tooled offense. Bradbury was drafted so highly largely because he was a converted tight end, so his athleticism and movement skills are elite across the board, but—through his four years in the league—he’s lacked the size and strength to anchor in pass protection. Despite the tantalizing athletic upside, those pass pro issues may just be the case for the rest of his career. 

My best guess is that the market for Brendel isn’t particularly ripe, the Niners prioritize continuity, and he gets re-signed. Something like a two- or three-year deal without a ton of guarantees that we can get out of after a year without punishment. But I do think the Niners try and figure out the development of his heir incumbent this year, whether that’s Poe or someone that they draft this spring. 

If I were the betting type, I’d say the only big ticket contract we may hand out is a multi-year deal to Mike McGlinchey, or—potentially—his replacement. Regardless, I’d expect the Niners to use at least one of their mid-round picks on the offensive line, but that could mean anything from a contender at right tackle, an up-and-coming center, an all-purpose swing, or some combination of the above. While improvement along our offensive line is the priority, our best shot at that given our draft and cap situation is through the continued development of our interior players. 

Go Niners 👍🏈