2016 NFL Draft: Predicting 49ers GM Trent Baalke’s Priority List
By Rob Lowder
Focus On The Future
This will be Baalke’s most delicate dance.
He must not only be willing to display the necessary aggression to target the players that will fill immediate needs, but he must do it without sacrificing the future of the team.
Trades on the first day or the draft create the most headlines, but they also cost the most currency, whether being later draft picks or players currently on the 49ers’ roster.
While possibly the most drastic example available, the 2012 Washington Redskins gave the then St. Louis Rams three first-round draft picks and a second-round pick to move up four spaces to select quarterback Robert Griffin III.
Washington GM Bruce Allen sacrificed a sizeable amount of his team’s future for one player that, four years later, now finds himself on a different team.
Even if Baalke executed a trade of half this magnitude, he is doing it at the cost of future players that may become essential pieces of a 49ers roster that can spare no talent.
Players taken later in the draft, while facing an uphill battle for a starting role, often represents the core of a roster.
Aaron Lynch, starting outside linebacker, was taken in the fifth round.
Quinton Dial, starting defensive tackle, was taken in the fifth round.
Daniel Kilgore, starting center, was taken in the fifth round.
Trent Brown, starting right tackle, was taken in the seventh round.
Every NFL roster has a host of starting talent that was taken in the later rounds of the draft, so while it may be tempting to see the nine draft picks from rounds four to seven as expendable currency, this simply is not the case.
Should Baalke find it necessary to trade these selections, outside of the four compensatory selections that they cannot trade, he must be certain he is doing so for a player worth the cost.
Next: Priority 4