San Francisco 49ers: 2016 NFL Draft Recap & Analysis

Most Surprising Move: Passing on Quarterbacks

With the 49ers’ four quarterbacks under contract, being the regressing Colin Kaepernick, the former bust Blaine Gabbert, the journeyman Thad Lewis and the undrafted Dylan Thompson, it seemed to me before the draft that quarterback was the position of biggest need. After all, the 49ers were actively trying to shop Kaepernick around, with a deal to the Denver Broncos almost agreed to, but with cash problems getting in the way.

It seemed, to me like the team was deadset to move on from Kaepernick; it’s difficult to offer a guy for trade and then bring him back in, smiling and pretending that nothing was wrong the entire time. That’s the sort of move that destroys the relationship between teams and players, and it seemed like the Kaepernick-49ers relationship was unsalvagable.

When the Broncos traded up to draft quarterback Paxton Lynch, the 49ers-Broncos trade was dead in the water. However, the 49ers were still in the market for a developmental player, and a backup option for 2017 in case Kaepernick regressed for the fourth straight season and Gabbert remained, well, Blaine Gabbert.

Instead, the 49ers passed, passed and passed again on quarterbacks. They didn’t go after Paxton Lynch of Memphis, they didn’t stop Connor Cook of Michigan after his surprising fall to the third round and they didn’t grab one of the early day three prospects, such as Brandon Allen of Arkansas. There’s certainly an argument to be made for shoring up an offensive line before slotting a quarterback behind center, but drafting five linemen and two cornerbacks before addressing the most important position in the game–a position the team did not, and still does not, have a long-term plan at–seems oddly shortsighted.

They stopped the quarterback slide by taking Jeff Driskel with the sixth-round pick they received from Denver in the Vernon Davis trade.

Driskel was the best quarterback available at the time, so it’s hard to argue with the pick too much. Driskel was supposed to be the next Tim Tebow at Florida, but injuries slowed him down there. As a graduate transfer to Louisiana Tech, Driskel put up an impressive statline (62.3 percent completions; 4,026 yards; 27 touchdowns; 8 interceptions; five rushing touchdowns), but he’s still more flashes of talent that needs to be molded into something.

It will be interesting to see what Chip Kelly does with him, but he’s a back end of the roster guy for now, and might end up spending a year on the practice squad more than anything else.

It feels like the 49ers plan is hoping Kaepernick or Gabbert can beat the odds–and if they don’t, they’ll likely be drafting high enough to pick a Chad Kelly or a C.J. Beathard next year. That kind of makes sense, in a Philadelphia 76ers tank the season sort of way, but it’s disappointing that the team wasn’t more aggressive to try to fill the position. With the efforts they underwent to try to offload Kaepernick this offseason, passing on quarterbacks until the very late stages of the draft was a surprise for me.

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