I know the consensus of the San Francisco 49ers lately has been about some draft whiffs and misses. But man, when they get a hit, they usually get. a. HIT.<\/p>\n
Last week, Pro Football Focus made a top-20 list <\/a>of the most valuable non-1st round draft picks since 2016. Since all but one year in that period falls under Kyle Shanahan\u2019s tenure, it\u2019s interesting that three 49ers made the list: Quarterback Brock Purdy, tight end George Kittle, and linebacker Fred Warner.<\/p>\n It should surprise no one that those three are on the list. Many may also not be surprised to see Brock Purdy No. 1 on that list. It\u2019s interesting to see the other two in the top-10.<\/p>\n Purdy\u2019s status at the top of this list can\u2019t be put better:<\/p>\n The odds of finding a franchise quarterback outside of the first round are already very slim. But landing one with the last pick in the draft is an extreme statistical anomaly \u2014 yet that\u2019s what the 49ers pulled off when they took Purdy four years ago.<\/p>\n While I\u2019ll defend the 49ers\u2019 drafting\u2014to an extent\u2014I will agree that had Purdy not arrived, Shanahan may not have a job after that Trey Lance fiasco. Putting the Lance history aside, who would have thought the last pick in the draft would have us stop holding our breath when the 49ers threw the ball?<\/p>\n \u201cKittle has been an insanely consistent player,\u201d PFF wrote on the tight end, \u201cNotching at least an 84.7-plus overall PFF grade in eight straight seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n The injuries to Kittle are disappointing. In fact, we might be looking to Jake Tonges to start the 2026 season, but the fact that he can block and catch can\u2019t be understated. Plus, once you learn more facts about him<\/a>, you\u2019ll know how good he is.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s Fred Warner:<\/p>\n In addition to Purdy and Kittle, Warner is another feather in the cap of John Lynch\u2019s numerous mid-to-late-round steals.<\/p>\n Despite being a third-round choice in 2018, Warner has become widely regarded as the best linebacker in the league.<\/p>\n I like that word \u201cnumerous,\u201d like the 49ers haven\u2019t done this a few more times over the years. Is it perfect? No, but we might come to think they never do it. If the 49ers were as bad at drafting as we\u2019d make them out to be, they wouldn\u2019t have been in two Super Bowls and fighting for playoff spots every year. We\u2019ve seen bad drafting (Trent Baalke says \u201chi\u201d).<\/p>\n On the NFC West as a whole. The Los Angeles Rams had one player (Puka Nacua) on the list, while the Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks had no one. I don\u2019t necessarily take this as a slight. The Seahawks have a young team that won them a Super Bowl last year, and the Rams have also done well, or they wouldn\u2019t have had a young pass rusher to send to Cleveland in that Myles Garrett fiasco<\/a>. The difference is that when the 49ers get value, it\u2019s usually S-tier, but it\u2019s oftentimes buried in a sea of picks that didn\u2019t quite pan out. On the flipside, the Seahawks can get some solid value for a lot of what they can get.<\/p>\n Do the 49ers have draft issues? Sure. Outside of Brock Purdy, those other two value picks came in 2017 and 2018\u2014nearly a decade ago. Meanwhile, someone like Nacua came in 2023. It does help with the \u201cpaying older stars\u201d narrative I see some running with. Add Dre Greenlaw, who was drafted in 2019, Trent Williams, etc., and you at least see where some are coming from.<\/p>\n That said, it\u2019s not all-encompassing. While these picks are nearing the 10-year mark, it\u2019s still a good pointer to counter those \u201cThe 49ers draft terribly and they have older veterans\u201d takes with \u201cYeah, because those older veterans are some of the best in the league and were drafted by the 49ers in the first place\u201d. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s the best counter to make, but it makes some sense.<\/p>\n Are there any other players you think should have made this list?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I know the consensus of the San Francisco 49ers lately has been about some draft whiffs and misses.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,47545,99],"class_list":["post-688369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-san-francisco-49ers-roster","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}