It was deja vu for the 49ers in the first round, while they didn’t force a pick along the OL in the 2nd, and still found a starter in the 3rd.
You can play dozens of “What if?” games with any team and see how the NFL Draft played out for them.
The San Francisco 49ers‘ 2021 trade sticks out like a sore thumb. On Day 3, they made another trade for a running back who didn’t make it to Year 2—one spot in front of wide receiver Nico Collins.
Before Ricky, there was Drake
Fast-forward one season, and the 49ers mimicked what they did at receiver in the 2024 draft, just along the defensive line. Dee Ford played fewer than 250 snaps for the third season in a row. Kerry Hyder, Samson Ebukam, and Charles Omenihu were entering the final years of their contracts, and this was before Omenihu had his breakout season. The 49ers planned for the future without that trio and selected Drake Jackson in the second round—their first pick of the draft.
The Niners needed help on the defensive line, but plenty of mock drafts had a safety penciled in as the team’s pick in the 2022 NFL Draft. Jaquiski Tartt was not re-signed, and Talanoa Hufanga was a relative unknown. The Cincinnati Bengals selected Cam Taylor-Britt one spot ahead of Jackson. To this day, I’m convinced that’s who the 49ers were selecting.
The 49ers have shown a consistent pattern in their draft choices, selecting players who fit their team’s needs. Jackson may not have been the typical ‘Kris Kocurek’ prospect, but he filled a position of need. Even with the benefit of hindsight, he was the best player available on the draft board, without relying on outlier success stories like Dallas Cowboys fifth-round pick DaRon Bland.
There’s a process. Every team makes a trade where they pass on a player who eventually outperforms their selection. There isn’t one organization that had to change its pick because the player it wanted was selected in front of it. But not all teams are cognizant enough to draft a player one year ahead before that position becomes more of a “must” than a need.
Heading into the 2024 NFL Draft, adding help to the offensive line was at the top of the pecking order for most mock drafts. The entire world watched Brock Purdy under duress all game long at the Super Bowl. For context, Purdy completed 23 passes against the Kansas City Chiefs. He was pressured 19 times.
What head coach in their right mind would allow that to happen again? Not everybody agreed with the order you’d rank this year’s tackle class, but most draft analysts had them all in the same tier.
By the time the 49ers were on the clock, nine offensive linemen had been selected. Nine.
The drop-off of the next crop of tackles was due to their inexperience or ineffectiveness to some degree. I was as big of a fan of the tackle the Kansas City Chiefs drafted, who we’ll get to shortly, but he was a second-round prospect. In the 49ers’ eyes, every tackle available at No. 31 had a better chance of being there at No. 63 than Ricky Pearsall.
Positional run
From pick No. 29 until pick No. 55, a tackle wasn’t selected. Then, there was a positional run. Mike McDaniel and the Miami Dolphins drafted Patrick Paul out of the University of Houston, a player the 49ers had met with.
Paul is on the older side as a five-year junior, but that was a benefit in the 49ers eyes. The 6’8, 331-pounder is a gifted athlete with immense power. He needs some refinement to his technique and will likely have some rough plays as a rookie, but he started 44 games in college. He also lands in the most offensive-line-friendly offense in the NFL.
A few picks go bye, and DeMeco Ryans gets in on the fun. The Houston Texans selected Blake Fisher from Notre Dame. Fisher had the 49ers written all over him. The 3-year sophomore started in 27 games.
Roger Rosengarten was arguably the most popular tackle mocked to the Niners within the last two weeks of the process. He has ties to the McCaffrey family and Joe Staley. John Lynch and Chris Foerster flew to the University of Washington to watch Rosengarten’s workout.
Rosengarten is aggressive. You cannot teach his mentality, but his play strength is a major concern, and he likely needed another season to improve. The Baltimore Ravens took Rosengarten one pick ahead of the 49ers.
Kingsley Suamataia was on the board when San Francisco was on the clock. Trading out of the pick lets us know how the Niners felt about Suamataia’s readiness for Year 1. He’s a five-star recruit who will eventually figure it out, but the Chiefs are putting Suamataia next to Joe Thuney. The Niners don’t have that same luxury.
Is the drop-off at cornerback steeper than the offensive line? Can we get by with Colton McKivitz and whoever else on our roster than can compete with him? Those were the questions the 49ers were asking at pick No. 64, which they eventually answered by selecting Florida State defensive back Renardo Green.
Punitive damages
This offseason, the 49ers signed Brandon Parker in free agency and have Jaylon Moore to compete against McKivitz. Spencer Burford was a tackle in college. At guard, there’s Burford and Jon Feliciano. The 49ers re-signed Feliciano but didn’t do anything else during free agency to address guard. Aaron Banks is entering the final year of his contract.
Third-round pick Dominck Puni started all 12 games at left tackle in 2023, all 13 games at left guard in 2022, and has starting experience at right tackle from his playing days at Central Missouri.
Many are projecting Puni to move inside to guard in the NFL. We said the same about McKivitz when the 49ers drafted him. They have similar arm lengths, and Puni has a slight advantage in hand size.
Puni is athletic and powerful. He’s also wide, making it difficult to get around him. Whoever the 49ers trotted out at right guard last season could not say the same. Per Sports Info Solutions, when you filter how teams performed only by their right guard and tackle play, the 49ers had the seventh-most blown blocks despite having upwards of 100 fewer snaps in pass protection last season.
Puni, who started at two different positions his last two seasons, allowed four pressures and zero sacks. The 49ers would love for him to come in and win a job. At Kansas, most of Puni’s issues were caused by length. Inside at guard, he’s less likely to run into those issues.
Whether it’s the depth in the draft at the position or the depth chart on the roster, the 49ers rolled the dice that they could get three potential starters with their first three picks by waiting on the offensive line.
Puni is my pick to contribute the most as a rookie from this class.
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