Ranking 49ers 5 best NFL Draft picks by John Lynch, Kyle Shanahan

The San Francisco 49ers have used many avenues to build up from one of the NFL’s worst rosters to Super Bowl contenders in just a few years. One of the key ways they’ve done so is through the NFL Draft. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the best picks from the current front office.

As is the case with most NFL teams, the San Francisco 49ers needed a lot of things to break their way in order to go from four straight years as a bottom-10 team in the league to representing the NFC in the Super Bowl in 2019.

The front office, led by general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan, had to make shrewd decisions in free agency, along with continuing to build up the core group of players that was already in place when they arrived, such as defensive lineman DeForest Buckner and safeties Jimmie Ward and Jaquiski Tartt.

But they also needed to make good use of the draft capital they had heading into the 2017 NFL Draft, their first as a leadership group, and those they’d add over the course of that draft and in future years.

To be honest, they haven’t always gotten those picks right. Some of the early picks in the 2017 draft didn’t exactly pan out to desired expectations, and there were other players who fizzled out and never quite reached expectations. As such, an initial plan to rank the top-10 draft picks Lynch and Shanahan had selected together proved difficult.

Hence the top-5 instead.

But when they have been good, they have often been very good, as the rankings that follow will reveal. And these players have all proven to be instrumental parts of the 49ers team which made the Super Bowl last season and look to be part of a group of contenders for years to come.

Honorable Mentions

We’ll start the list with those who almost made the cut, and likely would have been the back part of the top 10 if that list had gotten all the way to that number. These honorable mentions have not necessarily been bad picks, they just haven’t risen to the heights of those in the top five.

The first is offensive tackle Mike McGlinchey, whom the 49ers took with the ninth overall selection in the 2018 NFL Draft, Lynch’s second draft in charge of the team.

After trading for quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo before the trade deadline in 2017, the 49ers turned a one-win season into a five-game winning streak to finish the year at 6-10 and end up at the end of the draft’s top 10 slots.

McGlinchey, who played his college ball at Notre Dame, was an immediate starter opposite stalwart left tackle Joe Staley on the 49ers offensive line. And while he has been inconsistent at times, he has provided the team with a very important trait: availability.

He started all 16 games as a rookie and played 100 percent of the snaps, and while a knee injury kept him out of four games in 2019, he still played nearly 75 percent of the team’s offensive snaps. And while he has been a better run blocker (Pro Football Focus grades of 81.2 and 74.9) than a pass blocker (64.2 and 67.2), there is still room for improvement.

If all goes well, McGlinchey should be a steady presence on the 49ers offensive line for years to come.

The second honorable mention goes to nose tackle D.J. Jones, whom the Niners drafted in the sixth round of the 2017 NFL Draft out of Mississippi. Jones has been a solid option, proving himself to be equally adept as a run stuffer and a pass-rusher throughout his career.

The main reason he’s here and not among the top five is mostly because of how little he’s been on the field since being drafted. He played just 147 snaps his rookie season (13 percent) in nine games, followed by 239 (22 percent) in 10 contests the next season. A promising 2019 campaign, where he started all 11 games he played in, was cut short by injury.

Finally, the third honorable mention goes to former Middle Tennessee State wide receiver Richie James, whom the 49ers took with their final selection (240th overall) of the 2018 NFL Draft.

James has played in 29 out of a possible 32 regular-season games in his two seasons in the NFL, but has mostly featured as a returner on both punts and kickoffs, with one kickoff return touchdown on his resume.

On offense, he’s played just 192 (18 percent) and 204 (19 percent) snaps, respectively, in 2018 and 2019, hauling in a scant 15 catches for 295 yards (19.7 YPC) and two touchdowns during that span.

The wideout is here because he’s managed to stay on the roster in spite of his draft pedigree. Now it’ll be interesting to see where he stacks up this offseason in what could be a big year for him.

No. 5: LB Dre Greenlaw

When the 49ers selected former Arkansas linebacker Dre Greenlaw with their fifth-round selection (148th overall), it was likely that they were looking at him as a depth guy who could play special teams and maybe contribute on defense down the road.

After all, the team had just given free-agent linebacker Kwon Alexander a four-year, $54 million contract that included $27.5 million in guaranteed money. Not to mention the emergence of second-year linebacker Fred Warner, who was currently anchoring the middle of the defense after a strong rookie season.

And then Alexander tore his pectoral muscle in San Francisco’s win over the Arizona Cardinals on Halloween, and the assumption was that he would be out for the season.

Into his slot stepped the rookie, Greenlaw, who ended up starting the rest of the season, even after Alexander returned incredibly early from his injury to play during the 49ers playoff run, and was noted by Pro Football Focus as one of 15 players who played more than 50 percent of his team’s snaps without missing a single tackle in the running game.

He was also in elite company in the tackling department overall, as pointed out by The Athletic’s David Lombardi.

Sure, he made some mistakes throughout his run as a starter for the vaunted 49ers defense, but as a rookie, these kinds of things are expected. But he also had some incredible plays, one of which arguably saved the 49ers’ season:

Greenlaw was voted to the Pro Football Writers Association’s 2019 NFL All-Rookie team, joining the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Devin Bush and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Devin White, both top-10 picks, at linebacker.

Not too bad for a fifth-round pick.

No. 4: LB Fred Warner

Speaking of linebackers who have been even better than expected as NFL players, former BYU linebacker Fred Warner comes in at the fourth slot on the list.

Warner was selected in the third round (70th overall) of the 2018 NFL Draft and immediately earned not only the starting middle linebacker position for his rookie season, but was also granted the green dot on his helmet, essentially making him the quarterback of the defense.

After a solid rookie year which saw him amass 124 tackles, six passes defended, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery, the second-year player stepped up his game to new heights in 2019.

While his tackles went down to 118 total, he saw an increase in tackles for loss (up to seven from three), sacks (three after none as a rookie), passes defended (up to nine) and snatched his first career interception, a pick-six in the 49ers’ Week 15 victory over the Los Angeles Rams.

Warner’s Pro Football Focus coverage grade also improved, up to a 74.5 grade in that area of the defense after earning just a 67.7 grade as a rookie.

In a league that is moving away from the old-school linebackers whose primary responsibility was to stop the run, Warner is in many ways the prototype for the new age of players at his position.

That the 49ers found someone who will hopefully be a long-term starter for their defense in the third round speaks volumes about not only the work that Lynch and his staff did to scout him but also the quality of the player Warner is.

No. 3: WR Deebo Samuel

It still hurts to say it, but for a little while during Super Bowl 54, it looked like a rookie wide receiver might win the MVP trophy. That’s how good 49ers wideout Deebo Samuel was during the back half of his first NFL season.

The Niners chose Samuel out of the University of South Carolina with their second-round pick (36th overall) in the 2018 NFL Draft. And while it took the first-year man a while to get going, he soon became an integral part of the 49ers offense throughout the playoff run.

Kyle Shanahan and his coaching staff got an early jump on Samuel after coaching him during the 2018 Senior Bowl, where the receiver put on a show for his future employers:

And while his quick feet and release off the line of scrimmage might have earned him notice, it was what Samuel did with the ball in his hands during his rookie season that really got the league to take notice.

Samuel racked up 961 yards of total offense (802 receiving, 159 on the ground) on 71 total touches (57 catches, 14 carries), good for 13.5 yards every time he had the ball and six touchdowns. And by season’s end, he at times found himself as the Niners’ de facto No. 1 option as both a wide receiver and at running back.

While Samuel wasn’t named to the All-Rookie team, mostly due to how late his surge came and the strength of seasons by the Tennessee Titans’ A.J. Brown and the Washington Redskins’ Terry McLaurin, he did establish himself as a player to watch out for moving forward.

If he can clean up the drops (10 in 2019 according to Pro Football Focus) and fumbles (two on the season), he should look to stand atop the team’s wide receiver depth chart into 2020 and for years to come.

No. 2: EDGE Nick Bosa

The only reason the No. 2 overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft didn’t get to be No. 1 this time is mostly because of how obvious a choice he was.

After the Cardinals decided to take former Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray with the first overall pick, there was only one direction for the 49ers to go with the selection. And so Nick Bosa, the former Ohio State Buckeye and brother of Los Angeles Chargers EDGE Joey Bosa, became a Niner and immediately helped the change the fortunes of the organization.

The pass-rusher was named the NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Year and joined the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Josh Allen, the New York Giants’ Dexter Lawrence and the Buffalo Bills’ Ed Oliver on the defensive line for the PFWA’s NFL All-Rookie Team.

On top of that, he led all rookies in pressures per Pro Football Focus, and his 80 was tied for sixth, with the Rams’ Aaron Donald, for pressures among all players in the NFL. They were also the most ever by a rookie since PFF began grading in 2006. Bosa was also graded as the 28th best player in the league in 2019, according to the site.

The scary part is he did this while facing a massive number of double teams and still winning at an impressive rate. And he’s only a rookie and won’t even be 23 years old until the middle of next season, so his opportunity to grow still exists.

If he does so, and improves upon his 47 tackle, nine sack, 80 pressure and overall disruptive performance as a rookie, I truly feel bad for the rest of the NFL.

(But not really).

No. 1: TE George Kittle

If 49ers tight end George Kittle had been a first- or second-round draft pick, then you could have made him and Nick Bosa 1A and 1B on this list.

But the fact the Niners drafted Kittle, a little-used pass catcher out of Iowa, with one of their two fifth-round picks (146th overall) in the 2017 NFL Draft immediately catapults him to No. 1.

And he might have been if he were even just a good tight end. Instead, he’s the best player at his position in the NFL and, at least according to Pro Football Focus, the best player in the entire league, regardless of position.

The accolades are remarkable given the guy was compared to Charles Clay by NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein coming into the draft and was considered the type of athlete who could be “an effective move tight end,” but maybe little else.

Effective, of course, is now an understatement.

Kittle set the record for most receiving yards by a tight end through his first three seasons, passing Hall of Famer Mike Ditka for the lead in that statistic. He also joined Kellen Winslow and Jimmy Graham as the only others at the position to catch more than 200 passes in that time frame.

The now-fourth-year pro also holds the single-season record for reception yards by a tight end with 1,377 in 2018, breaking Rob Gronkowski’s old mark of 1,327 set back in 2011, which also happened to be the former Patriots’ second year in the league.

To top that all off, Kittle is also one of the most willing blockers in the league and seems to enjoy that part of his game, which often ends in some of the most spectacular ways:

https://twitter.com/49ers/status/1206335148213460992

Kittle isn’t only the best draft pick in the John Lynch/Kyle Shanahan era, he’s also one of the biggest steals in NFL Draft history.

It’s still amazing the Niners were able to grab him where they did in the draft, and that, combined with the massive nature of his production and just how much fun it is watching him play football, makes him No. 1 on this list.