How have San Francisco’s “Gold Helmet” Draftees Performed in the NFL?

And what might it mean in Washington?

Given the flurry of dissections about Adam Peters’ first draft in Washington, DC, I wanted to take the time to look back at one of the processes that he appears to have brought over from San Francisco, and examine how that evaluation strategy has panned out over time.

With the 49ers, Peters, GM John Lynch, and Kyle Shanahan had an evaluation filter for potentially draftees that they called “gold helmets.” A description is below:

The San Francisco 49ers will designate about 15 to 20 prospects as “gold helmet” players heading into the draft. The designation is reserved for players considered “exemplary” in several areas, including performance, leadership, and intelligence.

It appears that Peters has created something similar in Washington, giving exemplary designees the “Commanders tag.” At least one player taken in this year’s draft, Johnny Newton, was identified as such.

A search for 49ers’ “gold helmet” picks in the John Lynch-era turned up five players who the organization publicly acknowledged met that criteria over the last four drafts. Those players, and some of the praise lavished on them, are below:

2020

Colton McKivitz (OL)

McKivitz has an aggressive reputation on the field, but his former offensive line coach and family friend says the 49ers couldn’t be getting a better all-around person.

“You’re not going to find a better human being as far as moral conduct is concerned,” Brion Schiappa said. “He will never embarrass the 49ers. Ever.”

2021

Trey Lance (QB)

Lance completed just 50 percent of his passes for 149 yards and two scores in the Bison’s win over Central Arkansas. He also did some damage with his legs, running for 149 yards and two touchdowns.

Peters explained to Barrows what made it so hard to evaluate Lance based on the single game he played last season.

It wasn’t his best game,” he said. “And there was probably as much pressure on him in that game as anybody in any game except for maybe the championship game. It was really a one-off. You can’t throw it out, but you can weigh it less, I think.”

Talanoa Hufanga (S)

“He was a favorite of a lot of people,” assistant general manager Adam Peters said. “The coaches loved him, Kyle (Shanahan) loved him, John (Lynch) loved him, I loved him. He’s a hard guy not to love.

“When he was still on the board, that made it an easy pick. But I credit Dom (Dominic DeCicco?) for continuing to push (Hufanga) and having the belief in that kid. And we think we got a really good player at a really good value there.”

2022

No gold helmets

2023

Ji’Ayir Brown (S)

“They call him ‘The Voice’ because he was the voice of the defense, the leader of the defense,” Peters said of Brown during a discussion with Matt Barrows of The Athletic. “And it’s not just what he says, it’s how he plays. Like one of my notes was, ‘He plays every play like it’s his last.’ He plays really, really hard.”

Brayden Willis (TE)

“We loved his run-after-the-catch (rate),” Peters said of Willis. “That was backed up by our R&D guys. He had the highest broken-tackle percentage of all the drafted tight ends.”

The executive acknowledged Willis’s similarities to Penn State tight end Brenton Strange, who was drafted in the second round. However, Willis’ wingspan is nearly five inches longer than Strange’s.

“He had more value to us on the line of scrimmage than Brenton Strange did as a true Y tight end,” Peters told Barrows. “(Willis) doesn’t seem like he’s that big when you look at him on tape. But he’s 245 pounds with long arms. So he certainly has the size to do that. And he certainly has the mentality to be a physical player.”

How Have they Done?

To look at how these five players have performed during their time in the league, I took essentially the same approach I used in my “Drafting Against Consensus” series. I looked at each players “approximate value” (AV) during their NFL career and compared it to that of their near-draft (16 following draftee) peers. For this analysis, I looked not just at the average performance of those peers, but also the percentage of all those peers that the target player’s AV exceeded.

The players for whom we probably have enough data to really make any decision about – McKivitz, Lance, and Hufanga – are the very definition of “boom or bust.” Both McKivitz and Hufanga have been the best players in the 17 player cohort they occupy. Meanwhile, Lance has been the worst.

In researching this article, however, the process by which the 49ers arrived at Lance being a “gold helmet” – and meriting the #3 overall pick – was almost draft malpractice. From The Athletic in 2021:

The biggest obstacle with Lance was that there weren’t many opportunities to see him in action. He played 17 games in 2019, but North Dakota State was limited to one game — a 39-28 win over Central Arkansas in October in which Lance got off to a rocky start — last fall as the FCS season shifted to the spring.

Peters said Waugh and Midlands area scout Steve Slowik attended that game. Peters would have gone, too, but at that point, the COVID-19 protocols were in effect and if Peters had left the 49ers facility he would have to quarantine before returning.

“So it wasn’t a ton of guys who saw him live, up close and in person,” he said. “Probably that was the biggest challenge of anybody. Because really, North Dakota State — you don’t go to too many games there anyway. And you go to see one player.”

As for Lance’s lone game in 2020? How did the 49ers reconcile that he had perhaps the lousiest outing of his career, one in which he threw his only interception at North Dakota State and completed 15 of 30 passes for 149 yards? Peters said the oddball circumstances — and the fact that it amounted to a one-game audition for Lance — made it difficult to assess.

“It wasn’t his best game,” he said. “And there was probably as much pressure on him in that game as anybody in any game except for maybe the championship game. It was really a one-off. You can’t throw it out, but you can weigh it less, I think.”

Reading that passage with the advantage of hindsight, it’s very easy to see how the 49ers completely blew their assessment of Lance.

The final two players, Brown and Willis, are too early in their careers to ultimately say much about, other than that they’re basically on track with their near draft peers one year in. It could be interesting to check back in on them after the 2024 season.

This is an incredibly small sample size, though that’s also part of the point of having a hyper-selective “gold helmet” or “Commanders tag” process, but within this group, I like the 49ers’ hit rate. I suspect Newton will be counted among the hits if I run this exercise again next year. What are your thoughts?