San Francisco 49ers: Re-Ranking NFL Draft Positional Priorities after Free Agency
By Peter Panacy
The San Francisco 49ers were one of the more active teams in free agency, which alters some of their needs in the upcoming NFL Draft. Niner Noise shuffles up the positional priority list before April’s draft.
San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch didn’t hesitate to use the overwhelming amount of salary cap space to make notable upgrades for the Niners in free agency.
The Niners were one of the more active teams when free agency kicked off on March 9, landing higher-profile names like wide receiver Pierre Garcon, fullback Kyle Juszczyk, quarterback Brian Hoyer and a number of others.
For a team in need of talent, these moves are surely pointing the team in the right direction.
San Francisco 49ers
And yet free agency can easily alter plans for the NFL Draft. With these new free-agent additions, what are the 49ers’ plans heading into the draft in late April?
Niner Noise has looked at positional priority lists before, and the draft was the place where many felt it would happen. It still could, just the landscape has changed a bit.
Before we break down the draft priority list, we should take a few things into account.
The majority of Lynch’s free-agent acquisitions, especially the bigger names, focused on offense. Players like Garcon, Hoyer, wide receiver Aldrick Robinson and tight end Kyle Larsen played in head coach Kyle Shanahan’s offense.
This might offset the need for offensive additions via the draft, at least to a point. And we should also understand this is going to be an elongated process.
Not a one-year fix.
With that in mind, let’s re-rank each position of need in the NFL Draft, starting off with a staple of Shanahan’s offense — the running game.