Iowa quarterback Beathard among team’s selections
After the much-discussed top five quarterbacks in the NFL draft, there wasn’t a consensus on which player headlined the second tier.
The 49ers determined it was Iowa’s C.J. Beathard.
The 49ers traded up five spots into the third round of the NFL draft on Friday to select Beathard, the sixth quarterback off the board. The move was a bit of a surprise. NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock said most teams he spoke with had given Beathard a sixth-round grade.
Rookie general manager John Lynch said he and first-year head coach Kyle Shanahan had spoken before the draft about not following the herd.
“One of the things Kyle and I talked about is, of course you have to understand how the league views certain players, but we really wanted to rely on our own eyes and where we saw people,” Lynch said. “This was an instance where we saw a player that we grew to like throughout the process. And he had qualities that we thought would be great to work with.”
Beathard, the first quarterback the 49ers have selected with a top-200 pick since Colin Kaepernick in 2011, joins QBs Brian Hoyer and Matt Barkley on the roster. Shanahan said Beathard will not compete for a starting spot as a rookie.
“I don’t look at it all like that,” Shanahan said. “We’re bringing him in here to develop him, give him a chance, just like every other position. Everyone competes. Brian is our starting quarterback.”
Beathard, 6-foot-2 and 219 pounds, completed 59.3 percent of his passes for 4,738 yards and 34 touchdowns with 15 interceptions in his two seasons as a starter. A factor that attracted the offensive-minded Shanahan was that he is one of the few quarterbacks in this year’s draft who played in a pro-style offense.
“One thing that helps is seeing guys play the way you’re going to ask them to play,” Shanahan said. “… It’s easier to see.”
And Shanahan saw many of the qualities he prizes in quarterbacks. Beathard, a two-year team captain, played with a brace last year after suffering a sprained knee before the season.
“He’s a leader,” Shanahan said. “He’s tough. He processes very well. He’s extremely accurate, and I think he lives and dies football.”
Before selecting Beathard near the end of the third round, the 49ers used the second pick of the round to grab Colorado cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon, from Sacramento.
Witherspoon (6-3, 198), who has 33-inch arms, is the type of rangy press cornerback whom defensive coordinator Robert Saleh is seeking in his 4-3 scheme. Witherspoon is raw — he played just one year of high school football and made just 20 Division I starts — but his draft stock soared after he led the nation in pass breakups (22) last year and was a second-team All-Pac-12 pick.
Witherspoon had the best vertical jump (40½inches) among cornerbacks at the combine and the longest wingspan (793⁄8 inches) of any cornerback in the draft. However, he had just 22 tackles last year.
His tackling is “something that we raised to him and we didn’t hide from it,” Lynch said. “I showed him the film — ‘That bothers me, help me out here’ — and he was aware that it does need to improve and committed to making it improve.”
The 49ers had the No. 67 pick, but they dealt it to the Saints in exchange for a 2018 second-round pick and a 2017 seventhrounder (No. 229). The 49ers traded a fourthround pick (No. 109) and a seventh-rounder (No. 219) to move up five spots for Beathard.