2020 NFL Draft: Case for 49ers not trading first-round picks

First-round picks offer the most security in the draft

When a person thinks about a draft class, one of the first things that jumps out is the great player found late in the draft, or the Pro Bowlers drafted on the second day. It goes back to that idea we’ve been discussing: the bargain.

However, what seems to get lost in the shuffle is how the majority of good players in a draft tend to come from the first round.

As to not fall to prime recency bias, I’ve taken the 2016 draft class as an example. With four seasons under their belt, we can relatively gauge how they’ve panned out. Going by Pro Bowl appearances (a flawed metric, yes, but an attempt at an objective calculation), there have been 27 players who qualified for a Pro Bowl. Eleven of them were first-round picks, followed by seven second-round picks, and then a tie for third with three third-round Pro Bowlers and three fifth-round picks. That’s a 33-percent rate for the first round in terms of drafting a Pro Bowler, versus a 21-percent rate for the second round and a sub-10-percent rate for any other round.

The main disconnect comes from people’s expectations of what the first round entails. The picture above perhaps best details that. There are three linemen there: Solomon Thomas, Nick Bosa and DeForest Buckner. All three were top-eight picks in their draft. Buckner was solid if not spectacular for the early part of his career before developing into a true threat who managed to return a first-round pick as a defensive lineman. Bosa was electric from the get-go. Thomas has struggled mightily in his career. Everyone expects a first-round pick to be a Bosa and will settle for a Buckner.

But most of the time, people just remember the Thomas-type picks, players who don’t pan out.

Forbes in 2015 conducted an analysis of NFL Draft efficiency and found 48 percent of All-Pros from 2012 through 2014 were first-round picks and nearly 30 percent of starters in the NFL were also first-round picks. The conclusion seems obvious but bears repeating: teams find better players in the first round.

And for the argument no good receiver has been selected in the first round in recent years, remember Hall of Famers Jerry Rice and Randy Moss were both first-round selections. Recent history is not proof first-round receivers are bad, rather it’s correlation and moreover simply a failure by teams to discern the proper skills.

For teams entering a rebuild, there is a good argument to be made for trading down. The accumulation of picks works when someone is trying to restock a roster from scratch. There are good players to be found in the later rounds, and bad teams, like the initial Kyle Shanahan 49ers, have roster spots to burn on finding those diamonds in the rough.

But these Niners don’t have the roster space nor the necessity for a diamond in the rough. Not all the draft picks would make the roster, especially when so many positions are so strong. Rather, using the first-round picks to secure a chance at a stud who can provide instant impact, rather than throw darts at the board, would help San Francisco.

If a team has more picks available to use, then use them. But with the roster situation as it stands, the 49ers should be hunting for very specific talented players rather than amassing another deep haul.

At this stage, it’s quality over quantity.