49ers roster: Tyrion Davis-Price won’t be a washout draft pick
By Peter Panacy
Why Tyrion Davis-Price flops with 49ers
Going back and looking at Tyrion Davis-Price’s collegiate tenure, he didn’t exactly do much beyond his 2021 season. While looking at stats alone rarely tells the whole story, it’s not like we’re describing a bell-cow tailback who is all but guaranteed to make an immediate impact.
Let’s start off with the notion Kyle Shanahan only employs a zone-style blocking system for his offense. Like most head coaches, Shanahan has evolved his scheme a lot since 2017, and there are plenty of power and man-gap plays that have become the norm over the last couple of years.
Davis-Price is more of a power back, but that might limit him solely to those kinds of plays.
Case in point, the rookie’s NFL.com draft profile notes how the former LSU standout “needs better patience to allow smoke to clear up front” and has a “below-average feel for blocking scheme and run lane.”
The indecisiveness described here is precisely one of the reasons why Trey Sermon fell out of favor so early in 2021, and it wasn’t hard to see this play out on film. It’s also one of the reasons why Elijah Mitchell emerged as the go-to option for much of the season.
Perhaps Davis-Price winds up following a similar trajectory, and the 49ers’ 2022 running back room is simply too crowded to afford him the chance to make up the difference in a short amount of time.
If he does, though, what should fans expect out of Davis-Price this season?