The San Francisco 49ers traded out of the first round of the NFL Draft altogether on Thursday. It was a smart move to accumulate more picks, and in the process, the Niners may have derailed the plans of the Seattle Seahawks to trade down.
Seattle’s general manager John Schneider said he thought the Seahawks would definitely try to trade back from No. 32 overall, but the trades that occurred ahead of them led to any trade talks falling apart.
David Lombardi of the San Francisco Standard connected the dots and speculated that the two trades the Niners made probably took away any hopes Seattle had of trading down:
49ers’ trade mania looks like it might’ve derailed Seattle’s plans to swap https://t.co/uobl9b0RGI
— David Lombardi (@LombardiHimself) April 24, 2026
If so, that makes San Francisco’s decision to trade out of the first round look even smarter.
The 49ers already have to feel like they won with the Los Angeles Rams picking quarterback Ty Simpson, so if the Niners were able to ruin Seattle’s plans as well, then the first round went about as good as possible for San Francisco.
Seattle ended up selecting running back Jadarian Price out of the University of Notre Dame. That pick makes plenty of sense, since Seattle’s most notable free-agent departure was Super Bowl MVP running back Kenneth Walker who signed with the Kansas City Chiefs.
With how good the NFC West was last season, the Niners have to look for any advantage they can over the Rams and Seahawks, the two teams that squared off against each other in last season’s NFC Championship game. If that means preventing Seattle from getting an extra pick in this draft, then that could potentially make a difference down the road.
The 49ers were able to close the gap a bit in free agency. They signed Mike Evans and Christian Kirk to address their acute needs at wide receiver and also brought back Dre Greenlaw on defense, which should at the very least give them a nice emotional boost.
Obviously, they still have some needs on the offensive line and at edge rusher, so the hope is the Niners can get some quality talent in this draft to try and close the gap a little bit more between their rivals.
Any time the 49ers can screw up Seattle’s plans it’s always a good day. Of course, it could end up blowing up in their face if Price ends up being a stud.
But for now, it seems like a positive on the whole.
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