The San Francisco 49ers got a ton of playing time out of rookies in 2017, and most of it was productive, as far as I could tell. The 49ers played their rookies so much, they had quite a bit more snaps than the next team in the NFL ... quite a bit.
San Francisco rookies played in 5,033 snaps, as noted in a graphic from Pro Football Focus. The New Orleans Saints were next with 4,267 rookie snaps — and they swept the Rookie of the Year awards this past season — nearly 1,000 snaps behind them is the Jacksonville Jaguars.
You can see the graphic below:
A look at how many snaps rookies played for every team in the NFL! pic.twitter.com/QPRVgcZ4vM
— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) February 20, 2018
As you can see, the Atlanta Falcons had the lowest amount of rookie snaps, with 903.
The 49ers saw C.J. Beathard, Matt Breida, George Kittle, Trent Taylor, Kendrick Bourne, Solomon Thomas, Ahkello Witherspoon, Reuben Foster, Adrian Colbert and D.J. Jones all played significant snaps for the 49ers.
That list includes multiple late-round picks, and many of them were quite good. I see a ton of starters there, and some pretty decent potential in guys like Bourne and Jones.