2023 NFL Draft

[CrimsonCrew]

Interesting comparison between Jason Poe and Joey Fisher. Poe is actually a little heavier, Fisher quite a bit taller, but their measurables otherwise are surprisingly similar, including arm length, 40 time, both jumps, and 3-cone.

Fisher: 6'4 1/8", 296, arms 32", hand 10", 4.97 40, 32" VJ, 9'4" BJ, 4.83 SS, 7.57 3C, 40 bench reps

Poe: 6' 0 5/8", 300, arms 32", hands 10 3/4", 4.95 40, 31 1/2" VJ, 9'3" BJ, 4.52 SS (big difference here), 7.52 3C, 34 bench reps (big difference here, too, though Poe's number is still quite good)

[CrimsonCrew]

Just another thing re: kickers. I have not personally verified this, but I believe only one of the last 17 drafted kickers received a second contract from the team that drafted him.

[arich35]

Let's look at the last few drafted rookie kickers (I'm trying to limit to 5th round and higher, the coveted guys).

Cade York, drafted in the 4th round last year, hit 75% of his kicks. That was one of the worst figures in the league.

Evan McPherson, taken in the 5th round in 2021, hit almost 85%. That's a respectable number, but good for 18th in the league among guys who had more than 20 attempts.

In 2020, Belichick took Justin Rohrwasser in the 5th. If you said, "Who?" you're in good company. He didn't beat out Nick Folk, whom the Pats let walk earlier in the offseason then signed off the street, and has never played in the league. I realize it's blasphemy to Aquestion Belichick, but he really doesn't have a great track record in the draft.

Meanwhile, Tyler Bass went in the 6th round that year (I know I said 5th or higher). He actually played, but hit 82.4% of kicks, which was bottom half in the league.

Matt Gay went in the 5th in 2019 and hit 77.1% of kicks (which, it should be noted, was better than Gould that season).

Austin Seibert also went in the 5th and was pretty good at 86.2%. But that wasn't even top-10 in the league.

In 2018, Daniel Carlson went in the 5th round. He hit 81% of his kicks.

In 2017, Jake Elliott went in the 5th. He hit 83.4%, good for 17th in the league.

Incidentally, Harrison Butker went in the 7th round that year and hit 90.5%, though that was still outside the top-10.

And in 2016, Robert Aguayo went in the second round and flamed out in a year.

Now, maybe Moody is truly special and will buck this trend. And you could make a strong argument that the cap space right now is more important than a low draft pick. But the practical reality is that there's probably some guy jonesing for a tryout and a league minimum contract who could approach the kind of kicking we'd get from Moody. Given how few valuable picks we had this year, I think we needed to look elsewhere. If Moody was there in the 5th (which, honestly, I still personally believe is too high), great. If not, we find another solution.

It is crazy that kickers who have been drafted have been average to downright terrible. How are there still kickers in the league? lol

[thesack12]

Let's look at the last few drafted rookie kickers (I'm trying to limit to 5th round and higher, the coveted guys).

Cade York, drafted in the 4th round last year, hit 75% of his kicks. That was one of the worst figures in the league.

Evan McPherson, taken in the 5th round in 2021, hit almost 85%. That's a respectable number, but good for 18th in the league among guys who had more than 20 attempts.

In 2020, Belichick took Justin Rohrwasser in the 5th. If you said, "Who?" you're in good company. He didn't beat out Nick Folk, whom the Pats let walk earlier in the offseason then signed off the street, and has never played in the league. I realize it's blasphemy to Aquestion Belichick, but he really doesn't have a great track record in the draft.

Meanwhile, Tyler Bass went in the 6th round that year (I know I said 5th or higher). He actually played, but hit 82.4% of kicks, which was bottom half in the league.

Matt Gay went in the 5th in 2019 and hit 77.1% of kicks (which, it should be noted, was better than Gould that season).

Austin Seibert also went in the 5th and was pretty good at 86.2%. But that wasn't even top-10 in the league.

In 2018, Daniel Carlson went in the 5th round. He hit 81% of his kicks.

In 2017, Jake Elliott went in the 5th. He hit 83.4%, good for 17th in the league.

Incidentally, Harrison Butker went in the 7th round that year and hit 90.5%, though that was still outside the top-10.

And in 2016, Robert Aguayo went in the second round and flamed out in a year.

Now, maybe Moody is truly special and will buck this trend. And you could make a strong argument that the cap space right now is more important than a low draft pick. But the practical reality is that there's probably some guy jonesing for a tryout and a league minimum contract who could approach the kind of kicking we'd get from Moody. Given how few valuable picks we had this year, I think we needed to look elsewhere. If Moody was there in the 5th (which, honestly, I still personally believe is too high), great. If not, we find another solution.

Yup, not an encouraging trend by any means.

However, you got me curious about Robbie Gould when you mentioned him so I dove into his numbers.

Last season Gould was nails on PAT's being 4th in the league at 98%. However he was all the way down in 20th on FG% with 84.4%. He only attempted 2 FG's of 50+ yards which is all the way down as 31st most. His kickoff performance were downright bad, he was 23rd on average distance and all the way down in 38th in Touchback rate.

In 2021 Gould was again very good with PAT's at 97.5% which was 7th in the NFL. However he was again below average on FG's with 87% which was 17th. Again he was low on FG's from distance only attempting 4 from 50+ which was 21st most. He left a lot to be desired on kickoffs again as well, only being 25th on average distance, and 42nd on Touchback %.

For the most part 49er nation seemed pretty happy with Gould. While he did seem to have that clutch gene, which is important, if you take a gander into his overall numbers he really wasn't all that great. For a bit more reference, Gould was also the 2nd most expensive kicker in the NFL last season at a tick over $5.5 mil.

Also Gould's lack of leg strength all but eliminated any thoughts of going for a FG unless the 9ers were inside of the 30 yard line. Having a kicker who can stretch the field a bit, will help. Also considering the consistently poor kickoff coverage of this team having a kicker who can get more distance on kickoffs which leads to more touchbacks is going to really help field position. While it remains to be seen if Moody can provide either of these 2 things (he projects positively in both aspects), we already knew for a fact that Gould could not.

So if you use Gould as a reference point, it really shouldn't be too hard for Moody to at least come close matching Gould's overall performance of the last 2 seasons. Honestly, it wouldn't be all that difficult to improve on it. Those numbers aren't intimidating at all. The current bar is: great on PAT's, below average on FG's overall, basically not even trying from long distance, and very poor kickoff performance.

[thesack12]

Just another thing re: kickers. I have not personally verified this, but I believe only one of the last 17 drafted kickers received a second contract from the team that drafted him.

Curious as to how far this goes back.

Anybody drafted after 2020 would still be on their rookie contracts. Looking all the way back to the 2010 draft, there were only 2 guys drafted before the 5th round. So maybe a factor in that stat is there haven't been very many higher end kicking prospects to come out in awhile? Which could also play a factor in the rookie kicker struggles in your previous post.

Since the vast majority of these guys were late round picks, of course their roster security is going to be a slippery slope. The same goes for players at any other position as well. Actually since kickers are specialists, you could argue that its harder for them to hang on. Obviously teams are only going to carry one kicker on the roster, whereas if you are a LB or a CB or a WR, etc you have like 6 roster spots available for you to grab.

Anyways, to be honest I'm not going to fall on the sword of defending drafting a kicker in the 3rd round. There just isn't much else to talk about currently. I personally don't see a huge problem with it, all things considered. Missing out on a prospect the caliber of being the next Davis Price, Sermon, Hurd, Witherspoon, Moore, Ambry Thomas, Witherspoon, etc in favor of taking a guy that is all but guaranteed to contribute (although at a lower value position) doesn't bother me personally. While the eventual return of investment would have been potentially much higher with a prospect at another position, most likely that eventual return wasn't going to be a needle moving player.

Now if Gonzalez beats out Moody in camp, then make some room on the hating the pick bandwagon because I'm hopping aboard, LOL.

[CrimsonCrew]

Look, at the end of the day, it's a really late-3rd round pick. And as said, we haven't exactly crushed that round of the draft lately. But that's not an excuse to stop shooting for high upside prospects. I apparently don't feel nearly as good about the starters and depth at several spots on this team as the FO does.

This wasn't a particularly strong draft, but it was a pretty deep draft as we're still seeing lots of prospects who didn't come out immediately after the Covid year, so the pool of players is large. I think we could have used a legit talent to compete at a slew of positions. Those include: OT, where McKivitz is unproven and Trent may retire soon, to say nothing of the first backup being either retread Matt Pryor or never-been Jaylon Moore; OG, where Burford showed potential, but also struggled a lot, and the backups appear to be Jason Poe (love the upside, but he'd be a real outlier if he succeeds), Nick Zakelj, and Jon Feliciano; WR, where Deebo is about to get REALLY expensive, Aiyuk, Jennings, and McCloud could all depart after this season, and Gray has shown literally nothing reassuring; CB, where we really only have one sure starter and then lots of pretty unproven guys; DE, where we have one elite player and then the hope that Jackson puts it together and Ferrell bounces back after a very average start to his career.

I would have prioritized all of those spots above a kicker, and several above backup TE. The Latu pick is also such a bad one, because he just didn't do anything special on tape or in his workout, and it was a crazy-deep TE draft. Instead of waiting for value at the position, we panicked and ended the run on the position by taking a guy probably two rounds too early. Just as a general rule, you don't want to be the team ending a positional run. It's awful process. Hopefully Latu proves me wrong, but it's hard for me to see that at this point.

I think there were still a lot of players on the board at a bunch of positions of relative need who have longterm starting potential. We could have added a guy to challenge for a backup role along the OL, possibly start at outside corner, replace McCloud at fourth WR and return specialist. Adding two of those guys would have been head-and-shoulders better than the manner in which we used the picks IMO.

The Niners' longterm fate is unlikely to hinge on these two guys, but it is just more evidence that, for all the success they have had, Lynch and Shanahan have poor draft process, and have arguably gotten pretty lucky in hitting on so many late-round gems.

[CrimsonCrew]

Adam Peters confirms what many have speculated, that Ji'Ayir Brown was a gold helmet guy. Apparently Brayden Willis was, too. That one is interesting, as he's pretty similar physically to the TE we took more than three rounds earlier, though admittedly not as fluid.

[CrimsonCrew]

Figured it made sense to post this stuff here rather than in the offseason thread.

Having read up on the rookie mini camp a little bit, I learned more about some of the undrafted guys and the tryout guys I knew little about. A few who stood out as intriguing developmental pieces, though of course all are huge longshots to make the team:

Spencer Waege - Larry Krueger was pretty high on him. He was a DE at NDSU, but at 6'5", almost 300 pounds, there's a good chance he spends most of his time inside if he wants to make it. Could be a guy with inside-outside versatility like Omenihu. His arms are short for his height (22nd percentile), but he's got good athleticism numbers, especially his vertical and ten-yard split.

Jahcour Pearson - This was a tryout of a guy who went undrafted last year and was the XFL offensive player of the year. Very long shot to make the roster. He's a diminutive guy, at a little over 5'7", 180 pounds basically at his pro day. There were tons of tiny, quick receivers in the draft this year. I was a little disappointed we didn't take a shot at any of them, as I would just love a guy with elite quickness in our receiving corps. So this is a guy who fits that mold who has shown he can play at a somewhat higher level of competition, anyway. He had an oddly awful three-cone (like 15th percentile), but an elite short shuttle (like 96th percentile). Doubt anything comes of it, but I'm glad they're at least looking at a guy like this.

Ilm Manning - Played OT at Hawaii, but he's undersized to play guard in the pros, much less tackle. But good movement numbers, apparently looks the part. Our OL depth isn't stellar, but we have a number of these intriguing guys like Poe, Zakelj, possibly Fisher, who have the athleticism to at least serve as solid backups.

[thesack12]

The more I think about and read up on him, the more I'm loving the Tig Brown pick.

Seems like the only reason he was available deep in the 3rd round was his disapointing combine. However, he was timed elsewhere with a 4.45 40 yard dash (a full 2 tenths quicker than the combine) and a 3.99 shuttle time (.22 faster than the combine) which would put him in elite company there. He also seems to have very good instincts and readability which will help offset his apparent lack of foot speed by being able to break on balls early and anticipate receiver's movements.

Brown is a willing and a skilled run defender. He also has experience covering the slot, so he has some versatility.

The most exciting thing about him as a prospect is his great ball skills and playmaking ability. He has a great knack for creating turnovers. He also piled up QB pressures (amassing 4.5 sacks in the process) and getting a good amount of tackles for loss. He could be a true blitzing weapon, and with Wilks the 9ers figure to blitz much more this season.

Just having Tashaun Gipson last year was a big boost to the defense. The last several years, 9er DB's have had non existent ball skills and seem allergic to playing the ball. Gipson's ability to see and play the ball was refreshing and quite welcomed. Tig Brown projects to be able to provide more of that, and I'm liking it a lot.

I'm not saying that Brown is gonna be Ed Reed 2.0 back there, but there is a lot to like about Brown as a prospect. If Brown can translate most of his game to the pros, 9ers could have a dynamic safety duo of Tig n Talanoa for years to come.

[CrimsonCrew]

Based on the film I've seen, I don't think Brown is a 4.45 guy. But I don't think he plays like a 4.65 guy, either. If we go with a starting duo of Hufanga and Brown, we will probably allow a few more big plays/TDs than we otherwise might. But we are trading that off for the big plays these guys can make with their instincts, ball skills, and never-say-die attitudes.

I said before the draft that I was really warming to the idea of taking a safety with one of our third-round picks, and I stand by that. In my view, there was a real drop-off in guys who could play FS after that point. I'm not sure just how much of a true FS Brown is, but he's at least a guy who has that potential. And as said, if he ran even a 4.55 at the combine, he probably goes in the early second round.

One thing to note about Brown's pro day 40, which he improved to 4.58: Penn State has a fairly quick track. WR Mitch Tinsley dropped his 40 by 0.05 seconds between the combine and his pro day. Last year, Jaquan Brisker dropped by the same amount between the combine and pro day. Those are the only other Penn State guys I can find over the past three years who ran both places, but the difference in time seems too uniform to just be a coincidence. But there's a lot beyond pure foot speed that goes into playing fast on an NFL field. And the guy he'll presumably replace in Gipson ran a 4.61 at his pro day (not invited to the combine) eleven years ago, so it's not like we have a burner back there now.