Breaking Down 49ers’ Top NFL Draft Needs by Value
The San Francisco 49ers can’t just get a perfectly valued player at a position of need every time they are on the clock. Which positions are overflowing with talent, and which need to have a premium pick invested?
In a perfect world, the 2016 NFL Draft board would line up perfectly with the San Francisco 49ers’ needs. When the 49ers are on the clock with their first-round pick, they’d be able to take, say, their future franchise quarterback without reaching or having anyone slide. They’d be able to fill their second-biggest need with their second pick, and so on down the line.
Of course, this is not a perfect world, and just because the 49ers need a specific position doesn’t mean players will be available. Talent isn’t evenly distributed around the draft board. Some positions have a few blue-chip first-round draft prospects but very few viable late-round prospects. Other positions shouldn’t be touched in the first couple rounds, but have tons of fifth- and sixth-round prospects to fill the back end of a roster. Some positions are loaded, with talent up and down the board, and some positions just aren’t very good this year.
It’s not sufficient, then, to know which positions the 49ers need most in the draft—it matters when those positions will be available, so they can plan accordingly. They may, for example, consider an edge rusher to be a higher need than an offensive tackle, but if there’s a plethora of edge rushers available in the third through fifth rounds and a lack of quality tackles, then that could be enough to switch their thinking come draft day. At the same time, however, a bunch of possible sixth-round picks don’t mean as much when you’re looking for potential starters, so you can’t let a position’s depth completely override need.
To try to find the sweet spots for the various positions of need, I used a fairly simple method. I took ESPN’s ranking of the top 253 prospects in the draft, and weighted it by the classic draft value chart—so Joey Bosa, their top-ranked player, is worth 3000 points, while Laremy Tunsil, their second-ranked player, is worth 2600 points, and so on down the line. I then found a couple of values:
- The average—the point at which roughly half the talent of a position is above a draft spot, considering that Joey Bosa is a more promising prospect than, say, Aziz Shittu.
- The median—the point at which half the number of players at a position is above a draft spot, not taking into account how much better the top half is than the bottom half.
- Draft “hot spots”—which of the 49ers’ 12 picks have high numbers of prospects at a given position in a reasonable range.
Taking these three factors into account, we can figure out which of the 49ers’ top positions of need have the most value, and what rounds they could consider safe bets to find viable NFL talent in.
As a reminder, the 49ers have 12 draft picks at the moment:
Round 1: Pick 7
Round 2: Pick 6 (37th overall)
Round 3: Pick 5 (68th overall)
Round 4: Pick 7 (105th overall)
Round 4: Pick 35 (133rd overall) – compensatory
Round 5: Pick 3 (142nd overall) – from San Diego
Round 5: Pick 6 (145th overall)
Round 5: Pick 37 (174th overall) – compensatory
Round 6: Pick 3 (178th overall) – from Dallas
Round 6: Pick 32 (207th overall) – from Denver
Round 6: Pick 36 (211th overall) – compensatory
Round 6: Pick 38 (213th overall) – compensatory
Let’s take a position-by-position look at where the talent is, and which of those picks could be potential sweet spots come draft day.
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