With the 49ers’ second pick, they, uh, shook things up.
The questions were all about whether the team would look to address safety, or maybe be proactive in upgrading the interior offensive line. Instead, for the second-straight year, they took a running back in the third round.
With the 93rd overall pick, San Francisco selected Tyrion Davis-Price out of LSU. This is certainly an odd selection and does not bode well for last year’s third-round pick, Trey Sermon, who went 88th overall.
Not only is Davis-Price not a glaring need, but this seems to be a fairly substantial reach. Mocks aren’t everything, but Davis-Price was not projected anywhere near the third round. GrindingTheMocks, a site that aggregates mock drafts, had his average draft slot as 208.8, and the 19th running back on the board.
Dane Brugler, The Athletic’s draft expert, gave Davis-Price a fifth-round grade, his 11th-best running back. ESPN had Davis-Price as the 175th-ranked player on their board and the 14th-best running back.
So, with that less than encouraging preamble out of the way, what’s their to be encouraged about?
Speed. Davis-Price ran for 1,004 yards and 6 touchdowns in his last season at LSU and tested extremely well speed wise. His 1.53 second 10-yard split in his 4.48-second 40-yard dash ranks in 93.6th percentile among running backs. That split is often viewed as a fair physical indicator of success in an outside zone system.
Here’s what his highlights look like:
So there’s college production and speed that could translate to the outside zone system. The 49ers were sort of forced into using Deebo Samuel as a running back last season because Elijah Mitchell couldn’t stay healthy and evidently, they do not like what they’ve seen from Trey Sermon, so running back could be considered a need.
But by just about every account, this was a reach for a player projected to be available around the fifth round. San Francisco eschewed a weak interior offensive line and failed to take a safety with the likes of Maryland’s Nick Cross on the board. Even if it pans out, it is a head-scratching valuation.
