The San Francisco 49ers surprised most everybody this past week when they elected to draft Illinois wide receiver A.J. Jenkins with the 30th pick of the first round. It is not all that surprising to see mock drafts be off base. If you look at this comparison of the actual draft to the SB Nation blogger mock draft, there were three picks correctly predicted. The mix of trades and distinct team big boards leads to drastically altered results.
Given that the 49ers surprised people with their pick, I decided to do a quick search of Niners Nation to see what people had A.J. Jenkins on their radar. I went into the NN Search function and switched it over to power search. A quick search for A.J. Jenkins under "this exact phrase" resulted in some interesting information.
I would argue user temerelaforza gets credit for being the most into AJ Jenkins early on in the draft process. I'm sure other people were intrigued by him in some form or fashion, but the earliest specific comment on Jenkins came from temerelaforza on March 1. He subsequently included him as a third round pick in a quick mock draft.
User Ougadas was also in on the Jenkins love early, including him in a mock draft as a potential third round pick. ItBurnzWhenIP responded to that comment with interest in Jenkins as well, thinking he could potentially "develop into something." Ougadas included another mention of Jenkins related to his visit with the 49ers and the potential to be a threat with his speed.
Finally, grantmp did indicate he thought the 49ers decision to bring in Jenkins for a visit was a "for realz" visit as opposed to just a smokescreen.
If you think you made some mention of Jenkins early in the draft process, feel free to look up your comments in the Search function. The search function is a feature of the site we do not address too frequently, but it is actually a very solid search tool. And it allows me to go back and congratulate folks who were on top of things to a certain extent.