What can 49ers expect from last year’s late-round draft picks?

Deommodore Lenoir

Draft round: 5

Rookie story: Found some quick playing time at cornerback before ultimately losing ground and finishing the year as a special teams performer.

Potential for 2022: Lenoir certainly looked like an excellent find in the fifth round out of Oregon in the early going of 2021 from the preseason into the regular season slate. He even started two games and showed the flexibility to play outside on a majority of snaps while also sliding inside to a slot corner role when needed. However, Lenoir would get beat in coverage more often than not and allowed a 125.4 passer rating, albeit in a small amount of snaps.

Looking ahead, the Niners invested fairly heavily in new corners this offseason after signing former Chiefs cornerback Charvarius Ward to a three-year deal in free agency to go with two more cornerback draft selections in Samuel Womack and Tariq Castro-Fields. Those picks were late picks as well, so Lenoir is hardly crowded out yet, but when you add last year’s third-round pick Ambry Thomas to the mix (who looked good late in the season) and Emmanuel Mosely as another starter outside, you can tell it’s Lenoir is going to need to really turn coaches’ heads to get more reps.