Off-Season Needs
The winds of change are (kind of) upon us, and the Niners have a lot of decisions to make this off-season to get back into contention. It’s far from an impossible task. Just look at the Eagles. They were trounced in the wild card a year ago and just won a Super Bowl despite having a soggy hoagie as their head coach. But there are important moves to be made to have any shot at returning to contention and finally getting over the hump.
The Deebo Dilemma. Before I get into our roster needs, the Deebo Samuel situation is worth mentioning, as he and his agent were just given permission to search out a trade partner.
First off, this doesn’t guarantee that a trade will be made. One negotiating tactic for teams–as seen most recently with Lamar Jackson’s latest extension–is to let a player’s reps look for deals so that they can set their own market. People like to imagine that Lamar Jackson was open for business two years ago, but all he was really doing was setting a figure for the Ravens to match. Any team wanting to sign him would have had to vastly overpay that mark and give up multiple first round picks in exchange. It was more of a negotiating ploy than anything else. In this case, Deebo is very much open for business, but there are more moving pieces than people like to think.
Unsurprisingly, cap implications will play a part in all this. And because of the timing of a roster bonus in Deebo’s contract, there’s a real chance this latest off-season saga will be done mercifully quickly.
All this seemingly points to a March 22nd deadline. But as cap maneuvering gets more complicated and less publicly transparent, even that is murkier than it would seem. So perhaps March 22nd is a deadline or maybe it’s just a benchmark in what could be yet another off-season saga that strings out longer than we’d like. The plus side is that—unlike with Aiyuk—if Deebo gets traded it should happen (at the latest) by draft time. Then again… this is the team that kept Jimmy G into the 2022 season because we didn’t like our trade return. And that—somehow—paid off with some quality starts and a solid comp pick down the road. If there’s a chance to do something weird and awkward that may or may not work but will certainly make some people uncomfortable, don’t put it past the Niners to give it a shot.
But what could Deebo net us in return? Honestly, I have no idea. Deebo is such a unique player that you’d imagine whoever trades for him would have a specific plan to get him into space as much as possible—most likely as the second fiddle to an established No.1 on a team that sees mostly zone coverage.
Former Niners’ lieutenants are always an option. Miami—with their commitment to receiver speed—sees as much zone coverage as anyone. Perhaps Mike McDaniel wants a powerful underneath option to complement the speedy skinny dudes who populate their receiving room? The Texans will likely be down two of their top three receiving options next season, with Diggs a free agent and Tank Dell looking at a lengthy rehab. And many expect the Commanders to make a splash, as they have a ton of cap space, a star QB on a rookie deal, and a legit need for a No.2 wideout opposite McLaurin.
Outside of the Niners’ extended universe, Denver has been floated, largely due to Sean Payton’s love of positionless skill players. The Steelers have at least been mentioned; they’ve been looking for a wideout opposite Pickens for quite some time now. And don’t count out teams that are further from contention but run by guys who are desperate to keep their jobs. Like the Giants, who have a No.1 wideout but will want to gather as much help as possible for the rookie QB they’re about to throw into the fire.
Deebo’s value will likely vary wildly from team to team, which makes it almost impossible to predict a legitimate landing spot or trade compensation. If I had to guess, I’d say the Niners would be happy taking back a second day pick in exchange. Will they get that? Who knows. But unless negotiations with his team get salty in a hurry, I don’t think this will come down to him being released.
A year ago, Stefon Diggs (and two Day 3 picks) were traded for a second rounder. A few months ago, Amari Cooper was flipped for a third round pick and a future seventh. Diontae Johnson—known headcase—was swapped for a fifth rounder before promptly becoming even more of a headcase and getting cut (twice). Regardless of what you think of Deebo’s 2024 season, it’s hard to argue he wasn’t better than Cooper and Johnson. And unlike Diggs, he isn’t coming off a season ending injury. Add on a contract that only pays him $16M next year, and we should get something in return.
It’s a bummer of an ending for Deebo’s tenure with the 49ers. He’s been one of my favorite players for years, but I don’t know how much he legitimately has left. And given how extensively teams have worked to limit his effectiveness within our particular scheme, a change of scenery could make sense for all involved. If/when Deebo gets moved, expect us to add another receiver. But I wouldn’t call it a pressing need. Aiyuk will return, Jennings has emerged as a legitimate No.2, and we spent two draft picks on the position just last year. A mid-round pick with good upside isn’t out of the question, but on the free agency front, I’d expect a depth signing like Darius Slayton or Robert Woods as much more likely than a big name such as Tee Higgins. This is not a situation where Deebo’s departure would cause us to scramble for a one-for-one replacement, which is largely the reason it’s happening in the first place.
ROSTER NEEDS
Offensive Line: They say an elite quarterback raises the ceiling of an offense. Well, an elite offensive line raises its floor. And we saw far too clearly what the floor looked like this season.
The zone/stretch running game was built by Shanahan the Elder to get outsized value out of undersized and undervalued linemen. Broncos OL legends like Dan Neil (3rd round), Tom Nalen (7th), and Mark Schlereth (10th) were all draft steals who checked in under 290 pounds. So it should surprise no one that Shanahan the Younger has taken a similar approach. In the eight drafts of the ShanaLynch era, the Niners have–to the chagrin of many–selected only three offensive linemen on the first two days of the draft. But times change.
As teams commit more heavily to push us out of our run and play-action game and into more dropback passing, the offensive line has become a problem. And as more teams jump on the zone/stretch train, those undersized but impressively athletic draft gems have started going earlier and earlier in drafts. While I don’t expect the Niners to drastically shift their team-building philosophy (OL coach Chris Foerster’s comments last off-season were telling), the best way to raise the floor of our offense is to improve in the trenches. And improve we must.
Our offensive line is interesting in that I like a lot of our depth pieces. Our bench has plenty of young(ish) backups like Spencer Burford and impending free agents Ben Bartch and Jaylon Moore–guys who have done good things in spot starts but who you can’t commit to as full-time starters. The problem is the frontline.
Trent Williams is still an A+ when healthy, but he missed the majority of last season and will turn 37 in the summer. We saw quite clearly how much oomph we lost at the point of attack when he was gone, and it would be smart to plan for the future in a way that insulates us in case that happens again.
Dominick Puni–who will likely move over to left guard to pair with Williams–is a B+ who is trending upwards. He was a unanimous All-Rookie selection and finished the season as PFF’s 7th-ranked guard. He has improvements to make, but he’s well on his way to being a foundational building block.
I’m assuming Aaron Banks leaves in free agency, so that would make Colton McKivitz our third-best lineman. Which isn’t really where we wanna be. To be fair to McKivitz, he played better this season than I thought he was capable of. He is never gonna be dominant in either facet and he’ll likely always have some ugly blow-bys in pass pro, but he cut down his pressure count (47 to 36) and sack count (9 to 2) from a year ago while improving his game across the board. I’m cool with McKivitz starting for us again this year. We can win with that. But with Williams missing the time he did last year, McKivitz was our second-best lineman. We cannot win with that.
Lastly, Jake Brendel continues to be a solid run blocker and a bottom-end pass-blocker. But the whiffs are tough and they’re getting tougher. Brendel allowed the 7th-most pressures among centers a year ago and the sixth-most this season. In 2024, he was also the second-most penalized center in the league–sandwiched between two rookies. For a scheme that has long appreciated elite center play, we desperately need an upgrade.
Outlook: Unfortunately, this draft is considered relatively weak along the offensive line. On the bright side, we have so many holes, we can be flexible. If we draft a guy and we’re not sure if he’s a guard or a tackle, McKivitz’s ability to kick inside means we can play him at either. Or he can start at guard while training to be an eventual tackle and McKivitz can stay outside. And since we’re picking all the way up at 11, we only need to give a few tackles a first-round grade to make addressing the OL with our first pick a strong possibility. We are notoriously picky with selecting offensive linemen, but we did take Mike McGlinchey at #10 in 2018. So it is possible. And by god will we be praying for it.
IMO, our goal should be to add two new starters. with at least one possessing high-end upside. I don’t think that’s a big ask given where we’re picking and how many selections we have. Perhaps one of our many depth pieces can win a competition for that fifth spot along the offensive line and surprise us, meaning we only need one spot to fill. Or maybe we can unearth two starters in one class–starting centers in particular can often be found on day two. With seven picks in the first four rounds, that’s certainly possible. Whatever the answer is, our offensive line must improve.
Defensive Line: The one big drawback of Saleh’s reunion is knowing that we’ll have to be dominant up front to return to an elite-level defense. That’s just how this scheme operates. And last year, we were far from dominant.
We finished 2024 ranked 24th in sacks (37), 18th in knockdown rate (8.3%), and 24th in pressure rate (20.5%). That was the worst knockdown rate we’ve had since 2020 and the worst pressure rate since before PFR started recording the stat in 2018. Then there was the run game.
Our problems against the run weren’t solely the fault of our defensive line. We had a lot of issues with off-ball run fits–especially from the secondary–and the loss of Greenlaw versus the run was made apparent during his brief cameo against the Rams. But the DL didn’t do us any favors.
Our need to fortify the trenches is doubly important because of how often we rotate bodies along the defensive line. Which means we need an influx of numbers. Like the offensive line, we have several dudes already on the roster who could be viable two-deep contributors next year. Leonard Floyd, Yetur Gross-Matos, and Maliek Collins varied in how long they took to get going, but they all had their moments. Evan Anderson and Sam Okuayinonu were both great budget finds and rotation pieces. But how many of those guys do you want starting alongside Bosa? One? Maybe two if the fourth guy on the line has genuine star potential?
We need frontline talent. And that need will only be exacerbated if we can’t re-sign Hargrave on a smaller deal after cutting him later this spring. One new starter and one specialist/heavy rotation player with upside seems like a reasonable ask and a good place to start.
Outlook: Edge rushers are always at a premium, and this free agent class is no exception. If we want a premiere edge rusher, it should come as no surprise to anyone that we’ll likely have to spend our first or second-round pick to get one. But there should be plenty of defensive tackles available on the open market and in the incoming crop of rookies. This year, it’s perhaps the single deepest position group in both free agency and the draft.
Similar to the offensive line, don’t be surprised if we spend two picks in the first two days of the draft fortifying our defensive front. But I’d also expect us to add a body or two–likely on the cheaper side–in free agency. With the loaded draft class and the surplus of free agent DTs, we should be able to find some buy-low candidates without bloating our cap or messing up our comp pick return for next year.
Tight End/H-Back: The long-awaited search for a Kittle running mate continues. And while a second tight end may seem like a luxury given the other holes in our roster, there’s still plenty of untapped potential in a Shanahan-led offense that can feasibly run heavy amounts of double-tight formations.
The need is increased by the fact that both Juice and Kittle are getting older. And the price tag is decreased by the fact that whoever we add doesn’t have to play major snaps right away. Would it be cool if he did? Well, yeah. But unlike offensive or defensive line, it’s not a requirement. Tight ends often come along slowly. All the more reason to add one sooner rather than later.
Outlook: Most free agent classes are bad at tight end, including this one. But this draft class is ripe with high-upside potential starters. There’s currently a large cluster of prospects competing for the TE3 spot, many whom look like they may have the natural receiving ability and athleticism to fit within our scheme. There is one prospect who will likely be around at 11 who I bet Shanahan likes quite a bit, but I’ll get to him another time. For now, a day 2 pick on a tight end seems to make the most sense. Or perhaps at the top of day 3 if the number of viable options continues to rise.
Third cornerback: Part of the reason why the Lenoir extension got done when it did is because the Niners loved his ability to play inside or out. This will let us be picky (and flexible) in finding the third member of our starting group.
There’s an argument that the third corner is already on the roster. The staff has long been high on Darrell Luter, but his inability to see the field over his first two years in the league should temper expectations. There’s another argument that the third corner was already on the roster, but we let him hit waivers on cut-down day last summer. Samuel Womack–who emerged so quickly back in 2022 that we cut ties with our then-starting nickel in the preseason–was one of our last cuts and was quickly swooped off waivers by the Colts. Within a month, he was their starting outside corner, finishing the season as PFF’s 26th-best corner with a 71.9 rating. It wasn’t as bad as the DJ Reed fiasco, but it certainly had some similarities.
Regardless, we’ll need someone to fill the shoes of Ward and Yiadom, whether he plays inside or out.
Outlook: Per usual, the Niners are not likely to spend a premium pick at the position. We might look twice if someone with high-end No.1 corner traits falls to us, but I’d guess this is a hole we fill with an established vet or in the middle rounds. Flexibility here is key. Great nickel corners are great but decent ones are not particularly hard to find, nor expensive.
This often applies to rookies as well. Cooper DeJean, a prospect basically everyone liked as a nickel but who some thought was limited to the inside, fell to the top of the second round in a thin cornerback class last year. He excelled immediately. But he did so playing entirely inside. A similar story unfolded a year earlier with Brian Branch, who quickly became one of the best nickels in the game.
That’s not to say that another DeJean or Branch exists in this class or that we have to pick someone in the second in order to get that kind of production. But it is to say you can find the position at value if you know where to look. My guess is we scour the back-end of the free agent class for a Rock Ya-Sin/Yiadom type player—a guy who has started meaningful games in the league but who can be had on the cheap. Then we approach the draft and hope to get a better and younger option somewhere in the middle rounds.
Linebacker: This only becomes a need if Dre Greenlaw walks, but–if he does–it becomes a substantial one. I like Dee Winters. As a coverage linebacker, he’s already there. As a run defender, he has hustle, but he has a ways to go in terms of finishing and fitting runs directly at him. He’s got potential, but he’s not Greenlaw. He also has an extensive injury history.
We line up mostly in nickel, but we don’t live in it like some other teams. Our second and third linebackers need to play. And even when we’ve dropped down into our 4-2-5, our second linebacker needs to excel in coverage. We saw quite clearly in the Super Bowl and most of last year what happens when we don’t have a space player in that role. They get hard-targeted in the passing game and that snowballs in a way that makes it difficult for our defense to get off the field.
Outlook: Uh… re-sign Greenlaw? There are some intriguing prospects in this draft class, and we have an exceptional track record of finding and developing linebackers in the latter rounds. Warner (3rd round), Greenlaw (5th), Winters (6th), and Azeez Al-Shaair (Undrafted) are all massive scouting and coaching wins. But, other than Greenlaw, they all took time to develop. This feels like a draft where we’re taking a linebacker, but that doesn’t mean it should be a year where we’re expecting that guy to start right away.
If we don’t have faith in Greenlaw’s health moving forward, that’s one thing. But if he can still play at the level we’re used to seeing, this isn’t the time to dick around. Just re-sign the man.
Go Niners 🏈👍