Getty Head coach Kyle Shanahan of the San Francisco 49ers talks with Jimmy Garoppolo #10.
Last Friday, the San Francisco 49ers jumped to the No. 3 overall draft pick, trading their No. 12 to the Miami Dolphins. In exchange, the 49ers surrendered their original No. 12 overall pick, a 2022 third-rounder (Robert Saleh compensatory selection), and a first-round pick in both 2022 and 2023.
While the 49ers say they are not moving on from Jimmy Garroppolo, they did reportedly try to acquire Matthew Stafford from the Lions before he landed with the Rams. So, with no luck in free agency, the 49ers are expected to turn to next month’s draft and it’s obvious they’re high and mighty on a certain QB prospect, or they wouldn’t have leapfrogged nine spots up.
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49ers Confirm They Are Eyeing a QB
On Monday, 49ers’ head coach, Kyle Shanahan, confirmed the Niners are heavily eyeing certain quarterbacks, which is why they made the move up to No. 3.
“The way we looked at it is, to move to three, we had to feel good that there was three guys we’d be comfortable with leading our team for a long time,” Shanahan said via NBS Sports. “We couldn’t make that decision before there was three guys. So we had to feel that way with three. Now I think there’s a chance to get there with four and five; there’s a chance. There’s five guys who are kind of at this party a little bit, and people are talking about them going everywhere. They are all over in the first round. Our feeling is these guys are going to go a lot higher than people realize and when you have two guys sitting at one and two who possibly could, even possibly three and four, and then you hear a lot of teams all the way through the draft who are in a situation where they really want a quarterback, and they don’t have someone close to what we have with Jimmy. That means those guys are going to disappear pretty fast. So we had to feel confident in three to make this move. That’s what we did. I’m excited about now. We know there are five players, but who do you want to put your future in? I’m glad we’ve got a month to really work on that.”
With Trevor Lawrence set to go No. 1 to the Jacksonville Jaguars and Zach Wilson projected to land with New York Jets, the 49ers will likely have to choose between Alabama’s Mac Jones, North Dakota State’s Trey Lance, or Ohio State’s Justin Fields.
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Shanahan Addressed the Struggles of the Pandemic
Shanahan discussed Trey Lance and admitted the pandemic canceling BYU’s 2020 college football season makes it hard to evaluate him.
evaluation a little more complicated, as Lance only played one game this past season, Fields eight, and Wilson had marquee games scrapped from BYU’s original schedule.
“It’s always hard when a guy didn’t play this year,” Shanahan said of evaluating Lance. “He played one game. I don’t think people are going to go a ton off one game, you have to go off his body of work. You have to play the whole season before. Of course, we all wish he could have one. We wish Wilson could have a full season, too. There’s a lot of things that happened this year. We also wish we could go personally work out everybody. I wish I could go out to dinner with everybody. There’s a lot of things that make it harder for everyone this year. But the draft is hard every year. If you look at it over history, 50-50 is pretty good. You throw in a lot more variables, and it makes it harder. But is it going to make it worse than 50-50? I don’t know.”
The one game that the Bisons did play was against Central Arkansas and Lance looked rusty, completing just 15 out of 30 passes for 149 yards and an interception. He also added some help on the ground, turning 15 carries into 143 yards and two touchdowns.