4 players 49ers must trade now after 2022 NFL Draft additions

The 49ers brought in nine players via the 2022 NFL Draft, which inevitably creates some excess, and these four should be put on the trade block right away.

It’s going to take some time to determine whether or not the San Francisco 49ers’ 2022 NFL Draft class will be a good one.

As necessary as it is to immediately react to and grade what the Niners did in the course of adding nine fresh faces out of college, we won’t have a totally accurate assessment until likely two or three years down the road.

However, let’s assume they feel pretty good about the prospects they onboarded. And if there’s another takeaway, San Francisco doesn’t have nine roster spots open and up for grabs on its 53-man roster heading into 2022 anyway, meaning some of those new additions are ultimately going to push out incumbents in one way or another.

Ideally, general manager John Lynch would like to get something out of players who are no longer in the team’s long-term plans. Trades are better than outright releases, and even though the 49ers won’t always get top value for a soon-to-be traded player, it doesn’t mean they should stall at trying.

Here are four players the Niners should look to trade at the soonest possible opportunity.

No. 4 player 49ers should try trading: OL Jaylon Moore

Being real here, San Francisco would have an awfully tough time trying to convince another team to give up something to land second-year offensive lineman Jaylon Moore. Particularly after he seemingly fell out of favor during the regular season and appeared to be third on the backup-lineman pecking order behind Tom Compton and Colton McKivitz.

However, one might recall how the 49ers still managed to trade linebacker Jonas Griffith to the Denver Broncos last year, and Griffith is of the same back-end-of-the-roster mold here.

At any rate, with the interest of at least trying, the Niners grabbing two offensive linemen in the draft, Spencer Burford and Nick Zakelj, doesn’t exactly spell a lot of confidence in Moore moving forward. Both rookies are Moore-like, having the capability of playing both guard and tackle, and it would take only one of those two to push Moore off the roster completely after training camp.

Moore still has the benefit of being a cheap fifth-round player entering only the second year of an affordable rookie contract, so putting him on the trade block wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.