Despite the on-field success of the San Francisco 49ers in the John Lynch-Kyle Shanahan era, the team is not that great in the draft.
The 49ers have reached on players in Rounds 1 to 3 over the past six drafts (2020-2025) more than any other team, per data from @sfdata9ers. A “reach” is defined as how early or late a player was drafted in relation to the consensus big board from nflmockdraftdatabase.com. All of San Francisco’s selections since 2020 were taken earlier than their consensus ranking, and some as far as 100s of picks too early. The only team even close to the 49ers was the New England Patriots.
Here are the 49ers biggest reaches, too:
Now, reaches are inherently bad. Especially if a team feels adamant that everyone else is wrong about a player. But if a team reaches and the player fails to deliver, then it’s extra bad. And as you can see from the top-20 list, most of the players listed did not play well for San Francisco and are no longer on the roster.
The only players who worked out were offensive guard Aaron Banks (who later signed a massive deal with the Green Bay Packers) and cornerback Upton Stout. Trey Lance is a solid backup for the Los Angeles Chargers, but he was absolutely not worth the trade-up cost and subsequent selection at No. 3 overall in 2021. Similarly, Mitch Wishnowsky was a fine punter for the 49ers, but he wasn’t worth the fourth-round selection it cost to add him.
The rest of the list is littered with career backups or outright busts.
And yet, the 49ers have been one of the better teams in the league during Lynch and Shanahan’s time running the team. That’s on coaching and a bit of luck with other draft selections that were steals — like George Kittle and Brock Purdy.
But such is the draft — sometimes you take players too early who were bad picks, and sometimes you take players later who are stars.
This article originally appeared on Niners Wire: 49ers front office has one clear weakness in NFL draft
Reporting by Oliver G., Niners Wire / Niners Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
