SF 49ers free agency: 3 versatile players Kyle Shanahan will want
By Peter Panacy
As SF 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan continues to develop a ‘positionless’ offense, these three pending free agents could be of interest.
It’s not hard to look around the SF 49ers roster and see how head coach Kyle Shanahan is straying from the prototypical position-based teams that have become the norm during the modern football era.
Case in point, Shanahan doesn’t deploy the standard X, Y and Z receivers in their usual format. Even looking at specific players, there are wide receivers who act as running backs (Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk should come to mind), fullbacks who do everything, pass-catching running backs and other wide receivers who have a tight end-like build but play like a running back with the ball in their hands.
The last example points out one player on the Niners roster fans have scantly seen, wide receiver Jalen Hurd, whose 6-foot-4 frame and collegiate experience as a running back made for an interesting X-factor on offense. Unfortunately, injuries have kept Hurd off the field the last two seasons, and he might never turn into anything useful from San Francisco’s vantage point.
Yet that doesn’t mean Shanahan will be content with the offensive weapons (that’s essentially a position in the Shanahan system now) he currently has at his disposal.
The SF 49ers are going to be limited with salary cap space this offseason to attack NFL free agency. So most, if not all of the targeted offensive additions here will have to be on something of a budget.
But when factoring in fit and versatility, the Niners may be able to get away with signing these three pending free agents on the cheap to help bolster Shanahan’s offense in 2021.