Todd McShay released what appears to be the final Scouts Inc 2011 NFL mock draft and once again, somebody else is jumping on the Blaine Gabbert-49ers bandwagon. Really Todd? Really? That now means Mel Kiper, Todd McShay, Rick Gosselin, and Mike Mayock are ALL projecting Blaine Gabbert to the 49ers. They're making as many guesses as the rest of us, so take it with a grain of salt, but that's quite the consensus I'd say.
In releasing this mock, McShay and his staff went the extra mile to put together a complete seven round mock from Cam Newton at number one to Da'Rel Scott at number 254 as Mr. Irrelevant. Here's a rundown of the 49ers twelve selections in McShay's Mock:
No. 7: QB Blaine Gabbert, Missouri
No. 45: OLB Jabaal Sheard, Pittsburgh
No. 76: CB Joshua Thomas, Buffalo
No. 108: RB Shane Vereen, California
No. 115: WR Dwayne Harris, East Carolina
No. 141: S Jeron Johnson, Boise State
No. 174: FB Owen Marecic, Stanford
No. 190: NT Jerrell Powe, Mississippi
No. 210: OG Garrett Chisolm, South Carolina
No. 230: OLB Derrell Smith, Syracus
No. 238: ILB Alex Wujciak, Maryland
No. 249: WR Kris Durham, Georgia
That's quite the mix of players. In assessing this mock, I think position-wise it hits on some important needs. The one change I'd make is grabbing a second cornerback, possibly in place of one of the wide receivers. Otherwise, McShay hits on the 49ers various position of needs. Of course, that doesn't mean I like the actual players selected. I do like some of these picks, including Vereen, Marecic and Powe. Guys like Dwayne Harris and Jeron Johnson are also intriguing, but seeing Gabbert at the top just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I know some disagree with that assessment.
Over at SB Nation Bay Area, Ninjames is helping out with draft coverage and in looking over the McShay Mock, he graded it somewhere in the range of B- to C-. How would you grade it?