Ranking 49ers pairs of 1st-round picks

The 49ers have selected two players in the first round of the NFL draft 14 times since the AFL-NFL merger.

The 49ers enter the 2020 NFL draft with two first-round picks. If they wind up using two selections on the first day of the draft, it’ll be the 15th time since the AFL-NFL merger that the organization has used a pair of first-round selections in one draft.

Some of those turned out well, others did not. We went back through all the team’s first-round duos since the 1967 draft and ranked them in order from worst to best.

No. 14 | 2017 draft

Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

Pick 3: DL Solomon Thomas
Pick 31: LB Reuben Foster 

Thomas hasn’t been a necessarily bad player, but he was selected to be a dominant force on the edge for the 49ers. He’s fallen into a more rotational defensive tackle role. Thomas has just 6.0 sacks and 16 tackles for loss in his three NFL seasons.

The 49ers traded back into the first round to take Foster with the 31st pick. He is no longer with the 49ers after being accused of multiple domestic violence incidents, including one at the team hotel in Tampa Bay that led to his release. His rookie season was marred by injury, and his second year was derailed by his legal issues. Foster had 101 tackles in 16 games across two seasons.