Predicting 49ers tight end depth chart after 2022 NFL Draft

The 49ers didn’t make any tight end additions in the 2022 NFL Draft, but there were some transactions afterward, which creates needed predictions for the depth chart.

San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan has long sought a quality No. 2 tight end to pair with the All-Pro, George Kittle.

Perhaps the closest Shanahan has ever come to having this was back in 2020 when the Niners inked veteran tight end Jordan Reed to a one-year deal, but the Reed-Kittle tandem never hit its full potential with both players dealing with an array of injuries over the course of an injury-plagued year for San Francisco.

And with the 49ers’ two depth tight ends in 2021, Ross Dwelley and Charlie Woerner, having statistically down years, one fairly wondered if Shanahan would shake things up in the 2022 NFL Draft.

Well, he didn’t. At least not by the way of a tight end.

Granted, it was a weak class for tight ends, and one could argue the Niners were wise not to reach for one of the limited ones available who might have a modest pro career. Yet San Francisco did make former North Carolina tight end Garrett Walston part of its undrafted free-agent class not long after the draft went final.

Except Walston didn’t hang around long, as the 49ers waived him shortly thereafter to make room for a veteran tight end in Troy Fumagalli.

These are back-end-of-the-roster transactions, and Walton didn’t exactly stand a real shot of making the Niners’ 53-man roster anyway. Fumagalli probably doesn’t either.

However, there are some notable battles to watch as we try predicting what San Francisco’s tight end depth chart will look like when Week 1 arrives.

Let’s take a deeper dive.