Scoots1994 wrote:CrimsonCrew wrote:Scoots1994 wrote:The only thing that strikes me about the NFC West is that all of the other teams are going for speed on offense and the 49ers are not really responding on defense ... that said the other teams are going to struggle against the 49ers power game (running and passing) if they swing too far to respond to the speed of the other 3 teams.
It's an interesting aspect of the division. The Niners have had some major success going against the grain with the league's shift to more passing, first under Harbaugh and now under Shanahan. And there is something to be said for it, obviously. We've made the SB twice in the last decade by being a run-first team. That said, the statistics tend to bear out that passing is more effective, and you don't want to hew too far in the opposite direction.
I'm worried about our receiving group. If any of our top three guys (including Kittle) gets hurt, which is very likely, we're going to be hard up to find players to throw to. And I'm not sold on Banks as a starting OG, but hopefully he'll slim down and improve his lateral movement skills.
I've been calling for the team to add a blue-chip DB for years now, and it's pretty clear it's just not a position they value. That said, our defense in general has solid enough speed to keep up in the division. Warner and Greenlaw are both fast for their respective positions, and our DBs are at least average. Verrett ran a 4.38 back in the day, Moseley ran a 4.42 at his pro day, and both performed well at the agility drills (especially Verrett). Thomas has some wheels, with a 4.41 40, but he didn't do the agility stuff. Even Lenoir ran a 4.45, though his agility marks were poor. Like WR, we're pretty thin and relying on unproven guys, but at least we've got some draft picks to scrap it out.
Sermon and Mitchell are part of the receiving plan too. WR is thin, but they are only going to invest light there going forward. Lynch made it clear he values the line above any other position on D and he trusts himself and his scouts/coaches to get DBs to work well. The killer is that the Niners have spent HUGE draft capital on the D-line and they have to dominate this year. But Buckner (7) and Thomas (3) are gone which hurts to lose those high picks so quickly. Armstead and Kinlaw need to take a big step up ... but we have reason to feel they are at least solid. After that see if you can see a trend: Bosa will be great if he's healthy, but they will try to give him a break in snaps. Ford is great if he's playing. DJ Jones can be good if he can stay on the field. Street and Taylor have shown flashes but can't stay healthy. Ebukam has just been okay but at least he's been healthy. The rest of they players on the DL are just guys who are mostly young but lacking in production. That's not great for all the draft capital invested and it being the "key" to the defense.
They've only spent slightly less capital on WR than DL (and arguably more), which is part of why it's so frickin' frustrating we still only have two players at the position.
I've detailed this before, but we gave out a huge FA contract to Pierre Garcon (I understood the rationale at the time, but we completely overpaid for an aging player who posted less than 800 yards and 1 TD in two years with the team), a fairly hefty extension to Marquise Goodwin, a 5th for Trent Taylor, a 2nd for Dante Pettis (traded a 2nd and a 3rd to move up for him), a 2nd for Deebo Samuel when they could have had AJ Brown, a 3rd for Jalen Hurd when they could have had Terry McLaurin, a 3rd and a 4th to rent Emmanuel Sanders for a few months, a 1st for Aiyuk (traded a 2nd and a 1st, 4th, and 5th).
That's a huge contract, and a 1st, two 2nds, three 3rds, two 4ths, and two 5ths (six picks from the first three rounds, and ten "higher value" picks) in the span of five years, and we only have two semi-competent players at the position to show for it, one of whom absolutely cannot be relied upon to stay healthy. That's been absolutely devastating.
I'm not entirely certain what you mean by only investing "light" at the position going forward, but if you mean not using more picks on it, I think that's a mistake. Until Samuel and Hurd show an ability to get/stay on the field, we need to be targeting the position as early as the second round every year.