In roughly three weeks time, the 49ers will add a host of young players to their roster.
With 11 draft picks, but all of them from the late third round on, there are a number of questions they’ll face in how add to their roster.
NBC Sports’ Matt Maiocco joined Murph & Mac on Thursday and discussed the positions he think San Francisco will look to upgrade with young depth pieces. Over their first six selections, split evenly over the third and fifth rounds (Nos. 99, 101, 102, 155, 164, 173), there are some clear favorite positions:
“That’s offensive line, specifically tackle, defensive line, specifically edge rusher,” Maiocco said. “We had tight end. We had safety, cornerback and kicker. So we had the exact same positions but just different players in those spots. So those I think are the positions that they’ll be looking at. I think that they will draft a kicker. It’s a matter of who.”
The composition of the roster is set up so that any of the team’s selections likely won’t be required to start, though they’ll be able to compete at certain spots.
He had high praise for the current roster.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a 49ers roster this complete heading into a draft as it is right now,” Maiocco said.
Maiocco thinks the 49ers will be able to offer competitive opportunities to their rookie class, but it’s hard to find positions where the team is absolutely dire.
“Younger guys might not all be ready to contribute at the beginning of the 2023 season, but, they will have an opportunity, some of those guys, to start,” Maiocco said. “Some of them, especially the defensive linemen, will have a huge opportunity to be big-time rotational players. And then other guys, like maybe the safety or the cornerbacks that they get, will have an opportunity as early as say next year, to step in there and and solidify themselves as starters.”
The overwhelming majority of the team’s draft picks have made its 53-man roster, and many of the key contributors have come in the later rounds.
Fred Warner (third round, 2018), Dre Greenlaw (fifth round, 2019), George Kittle (fifth round, 2017) and Talanoa Hufanga (fifth round, 2021) are among the many key contributors the team has found in the third round on.
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