“If we thought he was that good we probably wouldn’t have waited until the last pick,” the Niners assistant general manager said.
I find it amusing how someone recalls what happened in the NFL Draft. Let’s use the San Francisco 49ers as an example. If you’re the glass-halffull type, you’ll point to their hits, like finding All-Pro players in the third and fifth rounds.
If you’re the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately, you’ll point to Trey Sermon, Tyrion Davis-Price, and other recent “flops” where the Niners swung and missed on.
One thing can’t be argued: the 49ers enter every draft with a specific plan. Whether that works out is an entirely different argument. Trey Lance is being written about as the worst draft pick ever. Most of that has to do with the capital San Francisco gave up for him. It seems unfair that Lance didn’t get a chance to play, yet he’ll still have that label.
The Niners knew they needed a quarterback who could bring more to the table than they had at the time. Well, they found one in the most unconventional way possible. Former 49ers assistant general manager Adam Peters spoke at the NFL Combine on Tuesday, and he was asked about finding Brock Purdy:
“Brock…he’s always composed. Like he is now, he’s the same guy every day. Really, his tape is what really turned us on. I mean, you meet the person, but this is only a little bit about the process. His tape and, everything that he did at Iowa State and how well he plays and how well he played the position, we really thought that he could fit in really well with our scheme.
If we thought he was that good we probably wouldn’t have waited until the last pick. But, uh, we liked him that much. Now, I gotta find a new quarterback.”
Identifying a player’s strengths and how that’ll translate to your scheme is the name of the game when it comes to identifying talent. That’s an area where the 49ers have excelled under Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch.
Purdy looks like the same player he was at Iowa State. Dre Greenlaw flew around the same way he has the past few seasons as he did at Arkansas. Ji’Ayir Brown’s calling card at Penn State was having a nose for the football.
Now, there’s plenty of luck and good fortune involved. The odds that Purdy would get a chance without Lance or Jimmy Garoppolo getting injured were slim to none. The same is true, albeit to a far lesser degree, for Brown showcasing his skill set this year.