There’s still nothing wrong with the 49ers selecting Trey Lance at No. 3 overall in the NFL Draft, but they passed up on these four players as a result.
A full 11 weeks into the 2021 season, it’s clear the San Francisco 49ers are playing the long game with their top investment from last spring’s NFL Draft, quarterback Trey Lance, for whom they aggressively traded up from No. 12 to land at No. 3 overall.
Lance isn’t starting, and he’s hardly even playing, thanks to veteran quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo holding down those duties for now, and head coach Kyle Shanahan’s insistence Garoppolo gives the Niners their best chance at winning.
Right now, at least.
2022 will be Lance’s time, and the following years will reveal whether or not Shanahan and Co. made the correct decision with Lance. Hopefully so. And for now, there’s nothing wrong with that pick. If Lance works out well enough, there’ll be nothing to complain about at all.
Still, that shouldn’t prevent us from looking at some hindsight perspectives here, and San Francisco can still cringe at the thought it missed out on these other top-performing rookies the team otherwise could have had instead of Lance.
49ers Missed Player No. 4: Offensive Tackle Rashawn Slater, Chargers
Some are going to question whether or not the 49ers made the right move by picking up right tackle Mike McGlinchey’s fifth-year option for 2022, and while McGlinchey showed some improvement over the first half of 2021 in comparison to a rough 2020 campaign, the fact he’s now shelved for the rest of the year on injured reserve with a quad injury puts a halt to that.
Same with signing perennial Pro Bowl left tackle Trent Williams to a record-setting new contract during the offseason, too.
Meanwhile, down in southern California, rookie left tackle Rashawn Slater is dominating in the trenches for the Los Angeles Chargers, earning an insanely impressive 82.6 overall Pro Football Focus grade with only three sacks and two quarterback hits allowed.
While offensive linemen rarely factor into Offensive Rookie of the Year voting, Slater should easily command some attention there.
And it wouldn’t have been a bad approach for the Niners to continue reinforcing their offensive line instead of the Chargers grabbing Slater at No. 13 overall, one spot behind San Francisco’s original pick in Round 1.
49ers Missed Player No. 3: Tight End Kyle Pitts, Falcons
It would have been a total luxury pick if the 49ers had done this. But tight end Kyle Pitts would have arguably emerged as the Niners’ No. 1 all-purpose weapon in 2021 had the Niners moved up to No. 3 overall to draft him instead of Trey Lance.
Interestingly enough, when San Francisco made that move, Pitts originally thought the trade was intended to grab him.
It wasn’t. But, oh, to think if that had happened.
True, the 49ers already have an All-Pro tight end in George Kittle, but Kyle Shanahan has long been seeking a dual-tight end combo to wreak havoc on opposing defenses, and the thought of Pitts and Kittle working together to create all kinds of mismatches was as enticing then as it is now.
Instead, the Atlanta Falcons grabbed Pitts at No. 4 right after the Lance selection, and now Pitts has gone on towards becoming one of the most feared offensive weapons in the league, already racking up 43 receptions for 635 yards in what has otherwise been an abysmal Atlanta offense.
Those numbers would likely be scarier if Pitts somehow ended up with the Niners.
49ers Missed Player No. 2: Linebacker Micah Parsons, Cowboys
The 2021 NFL Draft wasn’t exactly chock full of edge rushers with can’t-miss pedigrees, and nearly every one of them carried some sort of notable concern.
On top of that, Dallas Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons isn’t a typical edge defender in a 4-3 defensive alignment anyway, and the fact the Niners already had two quality linebackers in Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw meant Parsons, currently playing as a weakside (WILL) linebacker for Dallas after being selected at No. 12 overall, would have been something of an excess pick.
But the 6-foot-3, 245-pound Parsons has proven to be far more than just a playmaker in space, even though he currently ranks second on the Cowboys defense with 62 tackles ahead of Week 12.
Read More: What Trey Lance must do to justify 49ers draft investment
Few players excel at being a proverbial “jack of all trades,” but Parsons is. And his pass-rushing prowess certainly can’t be overlooked, as he entered Week 12 with a whopping eight sacks on the year.
San Francisco already has 10 sacks from its leading pass-rusher, Nick Bosa, this season. But no one else on the roster has more than three.
Surely enough, the 49ers would have been able to figure out a way to use Parsons, who is a shoo-in towards becoming the 2021 Defensive Rookie of the Year.
49ers Missed Player No. 1: Cornerback Patrick Surtain II, Broncos
It sure seems like forever ago when the 49ers drafted a cornerback who’d become a plug-and-play star right out of the gate. And given the Niners’ cornerbacking issues thus far in 2021, one can only wonder if Kyle Shanahan and Co. should have put more of an emphasis on this position earlier than they did.
True, San Francisco used two picks on cornerbacks in the draft, a Round 3 selection on Ambry Thomas and a Round 5 selection on Deommodore Lenoir, yet neither has come close to solidifying himself as a starting-caliber option.
This is surely not the case with the Denver Broncos’ first-round pick at No. 9 overall, cornerback Patrick Surtain II, who has all the makings of the top corner selected out of this year’s class.
Through 10 games played, nine of them starts, Surtain is already shutting down this side of the field, breaking up nine passes and intercepting one, while allowing a mere 49.2 completion percentage when in coverage. On top of that, opposing quarterbacks are posting just a 76.5 passer rating when targeting him, too, and that all points to him being a true shutdown-type of cornerback for a long, long time.
Again, the 49ers won’t care about any of that as long as Trey Lance pans out.
Still, any one of these four players on this list would have been welcomed additions, too, if Lance ended up not being the pick.