It goes without saying that the 49ers were wrong in drafting Trey Lance third overall in 2021.
The team acknowledged that last summer when they traded the failing quarterback to the Cowboys for just a fourth-round pick.
This was a huge mistake, the kind that would normally get a head coach or general manager in hot water, if not ousted.
Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch aren't feeling that kind of pressure, but that doesn't mean the team isn't dealing with the ramifications of trading up to draft Lance.
The Niners' 53-man cut-day roster, released Tuesday, shows the severity of the problem.
Sure, the Niners have superstar players all over the field, but this roster is a mile tall and an inch deep.
And something else became clear: Selecting Lance was a mistake, but the bigger problem for the Niners was trading up for two first-round picks (2022, 2023).
These were high-value picks that could have produced starter caliber players, or at least given the team valuable depth. The NFL Draft may be a game of chance, but first-round picks have the best chance of emerging early in their careers.
Without those picks, the Niners' depth will be a big problem at several positions, leaving the team with little choice but to add a few reinforcements from the list of players released by other teams on Tuesday.
Yes, the Niners are going to have to do some dumpster diving.
Do the Niners have a Super Bowl-caliber roster? Absolutely. What else do you call a team with three MVP-caliber offensive players and two Defensive Player of the Year players?
But after a few months into this war of attrition called pro football, does the Niners roster still look like a Super Bowl contender?
The root cause of this lack of depth in the player pool is clear.
The Niners haven't drafted enough players in recent seasons, and if they're going to pay more than a few players top-of-the-market salaries, they're going to have to build their team with young (i.e. cheap) players.
The Niners haven't done that, and that's the biggest weakness of this 2024 team.
Right now, the Niners' 2024 draft prospects have looked promising in practice and preseason games, but at the end of the day, we don't know which of their new draft prospects will be the best because they haven't played an actual NFL game yet.
But we can talk about the past two seasons, the drafts where the 49ers didn't have a first-round pick because of the Lance trade.
And those drafts turned out to be a terrible mess.
Below is a list of the Niners' hit players for the 2022 draft class.
• Purdy
that's it.
As of now, Spencer Burford, Kalia Davis and Nick Zacheri are bit players on the roster, with everyone else either cut or released.
The Niners selected nine players in that draft, and the only starter selected from that class — the only reliable player — was their last pick.
That's a disaster. You ask what would have happened to this team if Purdy hadn't hit, but even in the midst of all the doom and gloom articles, it's too bleak to contemplate.
Tuesday's cuts revealed that the Niners' 2023 draft class isn't much better either. Second-round pick Zi'air Brown has a chance to be a star and third-round pick Jake Moody is the team's kicker, but the Niners also cut third-round pick Cameron Latu on Tuesday and Robert Beal, Dee Winters and Darrell Rutter are on the tail end of the roster.
Out of nine players, you have two guys you can trust, and then again, one of them is the kicker.
All of this combines to give you the lowest hit rate.
Sure, the 49ers could have screwed up if they had kept their 2022 and 2023 first-round draft picks, but the fact is the 49ers spent the past two key seasons in the draft lottery, and it didn't make them any richer.
And while I would argue that San Francisco has solid depth at several positions on this roster, including running back, cornerback and wide receiver (especially after using first-round draft pick Ricky Piersall at wide receiver this season), it should be noted that these are positions that boast some of the deepest talent pools in the college game.
Are the Niners really that good at identifying talent at those positions, or are they just a near-certainty in picking players at those positions?
Meanwhile, line depth, which can decide games in the NFL, remains dire: The Niners are lacking pass rushers and defensive tackles and need some reinforcements from the street.
If Trent Williams follows through on his threat to retire if the 49ers don't give him a pay raise, the 49ers will have the worst offensive tackle in the NFL this season, and a tackle of the future could be born as early as Week 1, but isn't on the roster. Meanwhile, this season's third-round draft pick, Dominic Puni, will be the starting right guard, which says a lot not just about him but about the talent competing for the position.
All this may not matter. It didn't last year.
Or maybe all of this will define the Niners' season, which was plagued by a comical number of injuries in the 2020 post-Super Bowl season.
Soccer is a sport played with a rectangular ball. No one knows which way the ball will bounce, and that's a good metaphor for sports as a whole.
According to Aaron Schatz of FTNfantasy.com, the Niners had some good injury luck last year, losing the fourth-fewest adjusted games last season.
Maybe it's a trend.
But this part is not up for debate, and it should be given the lack of depth on this roster.
First published: August 27, 2024, 4:33 PM
