Last year Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch took particular joy out of allowing the entire NFL world to think they were drafting Mac Jones before selecting Trey Lance with the third overall pick. They love being unpredictable and keeping other teams on their toes. So with just about two weeks until the NFL Draft, can we learn anything about their plans from their pre-draft visits?
This week has been a busy one for the team. They had visits with multiple players at a lot of different positions, and it can be hard to keep them all straight. Here’s a little help from our own Akash Anavarathan to put things in perspective:
#49ers’ Top-30 visit tracker:
— Akash Anavarathan (@akashanav) April 12, 2022
DL: 9
DB: 5
WR: 4
OL: 3
RB: 2
LB: 1
TE: 1
Are John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan going back to the well and drafting another DL early in the draft? Seems smart.
I can’t quite say I agree with that last part. Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch aren’t afraid to use their pre-draft visits as smokescreens for their true intentions. There have been some players the Niners have taken that have had a ton of contact with the team during the lead-up to the draft, and they’ve some other players taken without more than a cursory Combine interview.
Frankly, with how successful this team has been finding guys in the later rounds, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were using these visits more to target guys later in the draft rather than who they’re going with their first couple of picks.
So, to answer the question, what can we learn? Frankly, not much.
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