49ers NFL Draft: Ranking each rookie by projected 2021 impact

How many of the rookies can the 49ers expect to see on the field early? Niner Noise ranks all eight players from the 2021 NFL Draft.

With the 2021 NFL Draft in the books, it’ll soon be time to begin the preseason and then eventually the regular season as the San Francisco 49ers seek to return to Super Bowl contention.

The Niners have had good production from rookies in the Kyle Shanahan/John Lynch era (although outside of the first-rounders in defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw and wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk, the production in 2020 was more due to rookies being pressed into service after significant injury concerns).

While there’s a lot of expectation for early draft picks to start or at least play sooner rather than later, the real backbone of an elite team is the ability to get their later-round picks contributing to the cause.

San Francisco did its usual wheeling and dealing both before and during the draft, and came away with eight new players for 2021.

Here, we take a look and rank the drafted (no undrafted signings) by how they possibly fit into the 2021 plans. This does take some liberties, however, and will need to make assumptions with the positions that the 49ers doubled up on in the draft.

While we know new quarterback Trey Lance will ideally be brought along as slowly as possible to develop him from a raw quarterback to a franchise quarterback, that doesn’t mean we won’t see others with more of a role to play.

So now, we take a look at the eight rookies and see how they project in 2021. Just a word of warning, this does have some assumptions and a fair amount of guesswork attached.