Commentary: 49ers stick to Super Bowl formula with their first-round draft selections
When you go to the grocery store, you have a list of things you need to buy.
Sure, you might wander around a bit and pick up a few things that interest you — things that might be a good value — but you don’t buy those things instead of the items on your list, no matter what the deal is.
The 49ers, like every other team in the NFL, entered the first round of Thursday’s
NFL Draft with a list. They have four open starting jobs for the 2020 season — three-technique, split end, right guard, and perhaps right cornerback. The need was in that order.
It took two trades and some clever maneuvering to make it happen — perhaps the Niners were too cute — but they landed
a three-technique and a split end (aka an X receiver). They stuck to their list.
And the Niners weren’t blindly grabbing whatever was available, either. San Francisco not only drafted players to fill specific roles in the team’s offensive and defensive’ schemes, it also fit Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch’s rubric for what a successful NFL player should be.
Both No. 14 pick Javon Kinlaw and No. 25 pick Brandon Aiyuk are elite athletes. Not in the way that every player in the NFL is an elite athlete, either. No. Amid a league of full-grown men, these two players enter as superhumans.
This is the Shanahan and Lynch model. Sure, football is a game of smarts and technique and toughness, but once those prerequisites are met, the better athletes usually win.
The 49ers are hellbent on having the best athletes on the field.
Kinlaw and Aiyuk were two of the best athletes in the entire draft and arguably the top athletes at their respective positions in this class. Are their games perfectly refined? Hardly. No prospect is surefire, and if this pair — with their athletic abilities — were, they wouldn’t have been available by the time the 49ers’ turn to pick came.
The 49ers’ goal of getting the twitchiest of the fast-twitch athletes has worked up until this point. Let’s not forget that this team went to the Super Bowl a few months ago.
Shanahan and Lynch believe that the systems and team’s coaching can refine even the rawest prospect, but they can’t teach the ability to jump 40 inches in the air.
So when the 49ers’ brass said after the draft that Kinlaw and Aiyuk were the
team’s top targets at their respective positions Thursday, you should actually believe them. The Niners have been crystal clear about what it is they are looking for in players, and both of their first-round picks fill a need and fit the bill.
NO. 14 JAVON KINLAW
Via trade: Niners trade No. 13 to Tampa Bay for No. 14 and No. 117 (fourth round)
Pros
• When you think about a three-technique, this is the kind of player you should imagine. He’s tall, long, and has incredible lower-half explosiveness. That’s literally the Niners’ checklist at the position.
• In a one-gap, passrush-or-bust system, his athleticism should shine.
Playing next to Nick Bosa, Arik Armstead, and a rotating class of impressive defensive linemen, Kinlaw might go a full year without facing a double team. Starting in Week 1, there will be one play a game where he is able to burst into the backfield effectively untouched. This is a perfect match of player and scheme.
• Trading down one
pick and still selecting the player the Niners wanted netted San Francisco a fourth-round pick. That’s a gift from Tampa Bay. And while it was subsequently used in the trade to acquire the No. 25 pick and Aiyuk — perhaps a bit of an overpay — it was a good bit of business by Lynch that deserves to be lauded.
• San Francisco will not have to rely on Solomon Thomas to be an everydown-type player in 2020. That was an untenable situation.
• San Francisco’s run defense might improve with Kinlaw at three-technique. DeForest Buckner was larger and longer, but he lacked the change-ofdirection skills to break off blocks at the line. Kinlaw has those and can match — or likely exceed — Buckner’s lower-half strength. Cons
• While he’ll unquestionably fill the role of three-tech in base formations, can he slide to one-technique on clearcut passing downs? That’s something that Buckner did without incident and it unlocked plenty for the
49ers’ front four.
• Knee tendinitis concerns likely knocked Kinlaw down draft boards. That’s lucky for the Niners, but — despite the prospect’s claims that he’s 100 percent healthy — it’s something to monitor moving forward. Those aren’t issues that magically go away.
The Niners rotate frequently along the defensive line to keep players fresh, but Kinlaw will likely need to be given extra care … as a rookie. That’s almost antithetical.
Kinlaw has the talent to be a three-down player. Will his knee prevent him from actually being able to stay on the field for all three downs?
• Kinlaw is raw. He was able to get by on his superior athleticism at South Carolina — no small feat in the SEC — but his motor ran hot and cold and when he ran up against balanced, sound linemen, he did sputter at times. Offensive line play might be at a nadir in the NFL, but he’ll go up against plenty of confidence. He’ll likely start from Day One, but he’ll have to go all out on every down and learn a few new moves to be an impact player in 2020 and beyond.
Grade: AIf the knee is, indeed, not an issue, the Niners hit a home run by selecting a younger, cheaper, and more athletic DeForest Buckner. But the knee looks like it could be an issue, which would limit his effectiveness. That has to be some sort of demerit. NO. 25 BRANDON AIYUK
Via trade: 49ers trade Nos. 31, 117 and 176 to Minnesota for No. 25. Pros
• A tailor-made replacement for Emmanuel Sanders. In fact, the similarities in specs are creepy.
• Tremendous wingspan — the equivalent of a man four or five inches taller than him — and a 40-inch vertical leap make him a jump ball candidate. That’s something the Niners have missed under Shanahan.
• A YAC monster — Aiyuk has elite open-field ability, averaging nearly 10 yards after the catch last year at ASU. It was also hard to find a clip of him being chased down in the open field, despite not boasting elite speed, indicating that he plays faster than he tested. (And he tested extremely well.) It’s easy to see how in Shanahan’s offense, that will be put to prolific use.
• Controls his body and changes direction better than any other wide receiver in this draft class — he’s exceptionally balanced. He should have no problem running the slants and dig routes Shanahan prescribes to his split ends.
• A viable kick return option.
• He showed a toughness that is necessary to be a wide receiver in Shanahan’s system, which relies heavily on wide receivers to block in the run game.
Cons
• A late bloomer who was pondering a move to defensive back and who only had one year of meaningful production at Arizona State. That could mean upside — it could also mean that the transition to the NFL is jarring.
• Has big hands, long arms, and the ability to jump high, but doesn’t high-point the ball often. He can be a body catcher, which leads to drops. The Niners deeply valued Sanders’ sure-handedness. Aiyuk is unlikely to replace it.
• Struggled with physical coverage when he faced it at Arizona State. That, of course, was rare — as it likely will be at the NFL level, as Shanahan schemes clean releases and wide-open windows in his offense — but it’s of concern.
• The Niners traded away the bonus pick they landed in the move with Tampa Bay, as well as a fifth-round pick, to move up six spots to select Aiyuk. It should be noted that Seattle and Miami were also possibilities to select Aiyuk before pick No. 31 — the Niners’ original selection C but San Francisco might have been too eager.
Grade: A