10 superstars 49ers could have drafted but unwisely didn’t

The San Francisco 49ers have missed out on drafting some top NFL players over the years, and Niner Noise takes a look at what stars they missed.

The NFL Draft is a crapshoot for every front office in the league, the San Francisco 49ers being no exception to that rule. Players drafted the first round fall apart and never become stars, while mid-to-late round gems get uncovered every year.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting to go back and see what players the Niners could have had on their roster if different decisions had been made by the front office.

So that’s exactly what we’ll do here.

Starting with the 2010 NFL Draft and going up to 2020 (it’s too early for the 2021 crop), we’ll go back and find one player whom San Francisco drafted who didn’t pan out for whatever reason and look at players taken just after to see what else the team could have done.

Sure, this is all hindsight, and one of the most interesting parts about following the NFL Draft is that sense of whether a player, no matter where he is selected, will pan out or not. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to dream a little about what could have been for the organization.

To be fair, not all the players who are taking the place of the guys the 49ers actually drafted are bona fide superstars. But they are, more often than not, improvements over the decision the Niners made at the time.

Let’s rewind all the way back to 2010.