The San Francisco 49ers have plenty of due diligence to do on the quarterbacks in the 2017 NFL Draft, and they are getting in plenty of meetings. They can meet with the quarterbacks for a formal meeting at the NFL Combine, but then they cannot formally meet again until a potential private visit.
One way to get more information on a given player is through his agent(s). The 49ers apparently got in one such meeting with DeShone Kizer’s agent. KNBR’s Kevin Jones is reporting Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch met the the Athletes First representation on Friday, and the two men are reportedly “swooning over [Kizer’s] rare deep ball.”
There are a couple things to consider in such a meeting. The first is that an agent has plenty of BS to spin, so their thoughts on a player hold little sway. Additionally, Athletes First could represent other athletes the 49ers are interested in, so they could very well use it as an excuse to discuss other players that could be on the market. It is tampering at this point, but these kinds of discussions do happen.
Whatever the case, the 49ers have appeared publicly to be fans of Kizer. That could mean absolutely nothing, and instead could be a smokescreen to draw in some trade offers. We won’t know until draft day what a lot of this means, and even then we won’t know what the details really mean if they don’t draft a given player.
But for now, there was a meeting. It could mean nothing, it could mean everything, it is probably somewhere in the middle.