San Francisco 49ers: Projecting Each Prospect’s Role in 2016
By Jerod Brown
The 2016 NFL Draft has passed and the San Francisco 49ers selected 11 rookies to bring to the team. Niner Noise projects what to expect from each player in the upcoming season.
The San Francisco 49ers used 11 selections in the 2016 NFL Draft to begin rebuilding an inexperienced and unsuccessful roster. 49ers general manager Trent Baalke did a little bit of what we all expected–he made a trade, drafted a guy that can’t play right now and happily waited to draft a quarterback late–and now head Chip Kelly will have the task of making these guys stick.
If you’re looking for brief scouting blurbs or a grade for each of the 49ers selections, check out every player’s page from the weekend analysis.
Now that the picks have been discussed and bemoaned, it’s time to figure out just how these players will help the team in 2016, if at all.
The purpose of this exercise is not to toss out some unrealistic and unattainable statistical value for the prospect. Building a team isn’t as overnight as Madden and the reality is that many of these guys might do little-to-nothing on the field on Sundays.
But that doesn’t mean that they don’t play a valuable role in helping the team move forward.
With every pick coming in, someone has to go. If a recently-selected player can come in a fill a particular job, it means someone is headed out the door.
With that said, let’s look at what fans can expect from each rookie in 2016, and which players should be on alert that their roles might be changing sooner than they’d like.
Next: DeForest Buckner