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Now that the draft is over, you won’t be seeing much of me on the weekends. Between coaching spring ball and my daughter’s events, it’ll be tough to pump out material. Use this time to unplug and get away from football.
GamePlan: Ron Rivera Discusses Changes Ahead of Year 2 in Washington
3) 49ers: Last year, they had the worst injury situation in football and still were in the running for a playoff spot into December. I think a big-time bounceback is coming, behind an elite roster and coaching staff. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Jimmy Garoppolo plays well enough to put the Niners in a strong spot to trade him next winter—so long as Trey Lance doesn’t beat him out first.
This is a trade that San Francisco will take heat on because they misread the market for QBs in the draft but one that stands a reasonable chance of paying off. Lance would need to give the 49ers about $33 million in value which means he needs to be Kirk Cousins. At $30 million he would be closer to Ryan Tannehill. I'm not sure there is an appreciable difference between those two in reality but that gives you the idea of the type of player Lance has to be to make the trade one the 49ers won’t regret. Due to them giving up two first-round picks and a chance that one of them could be a very high pick in Lance busts this is a much riskier trade than the Bears one, but it did give the 49ers the ability to pick their guy here.
15. San Francisco 49ers (NFL)
• Value: $3.8 billion
• Five-Year Change In Value: 41%
• Owner: Denise DeBartolo York, John York
• Year Purchased: 1977
• Price Paid: $13 million
Media column: Inside the Mac Jones-to-the-49ers reporting and where everything went wrong
“I can’t rule this theory out as of yet, and I can tell you that some people who have more knowledge than I do absolutely believe this,” Silver wrote. “The theory is that Kyle blinked because a) it would cast him as someone set in his ways when it came to quarterbacking prototypes and seem, shall we say, unenlightened to the masses; and/or b) that he came to believe the fan-fueled hysteria that Jones could have been picked at 12 (that he didn’t go until 15 seemed to prove this out, after the fact) and thought he’d be harshly criticized for having surrendered so much for someone without such a pronounced upside, on paper.
“I like to believe that, if Kyle changed his mind, it’s because he was enticed by Lance’s potential and exceptional qualities, including his intelligence.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reports “several” teams are interested in free agent WR Dede Westbrook.
Fowler didn’t name any teams pursuing Westbrook, though we can assume they are among the NFL’s neediest at wide receiver. Westbrook, 27, had back-to-back 66-catch seasons for Jacksonville in 2018 and 2019 before suffering a season-ending knee injury in October 2020. In 2019, he was second on the team with 101 targets. Westbrook could be a serviceable starter if he’s fully recovered from his 2020 knee injury.