Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Here’s a rundown of how each #49ers draft pick looked in the preseason opener:
The 49ers on Sunday opened their preseason with an uninspired 34-7 loss to the Raiders in Las Vegas. While the loss marked the start of the team’s 2023 preseason slate, it also marked the start of a handful of careers with the team’s rookies making their debuts.
We ran through the performances for each of San Francisco’s nine draft picks (and one non-draft pick) in the 49ers’ first preseason game:
JOHN LYNCH KNOWS BALL.
We here at Niners Wire believe firmly that a player’s jersey number impacts their quality of play. For example, it’s not a coincidence Fred Warner’s career took off when he switched from No. 48 to No. 54.
Some numbers are just better for certain positions. If this sounds preposterous, take it up with 49ers general manager John Lynch, who attributed a number change to undrafted rookie D’Shawn Jamison’s uptick in production.
Here’s what Lynch on Monday in his press conference said about what he’s seen from Jamison:
“Jamison, he showed up. He showed up in a big way. And so much that he’s earned some opportunities. He’s been primarily outside. We think he has some flex inside at the nickel. He’s going to start to see more of those opportunities. And (VP of Football Communications) Corry (Rush) was telling me before, even (WR) Brandon Aiyuk was singing his praises. And that’s because it wasn’t just a flash in the pan where you’ve seen it a couple days. It was really, there were some struggles early on, as often is the case. And I think it was about the last three practices of OTAs, he started to make some plays, started to show up, and he carried it over into training camp.”
All of that is great, and puts Jamison on the radar as a CB who could break through at a relatively thin position for San Francisco or whatever. It’s the “why” of it all that really hits though. Lynch continued (emphasis ours):
“He changed that number. 22 looks better, whatever he was wearing in the forties. I like 47. The other numbers are hard to look good in, but those twenties tend to look better. But he’s really showing up, proud of that kid, and doing a really nice job.”
That’s right. Lynch attributes Jamison’s emergence in part to his new, and dramatically improved jersey number.
A number in the 40s isn’t bad on the surface. A safety (like John Lynch and Ronnie Lott, for example) can thrive with numbers in the 40s. So can a fullback (like Kyle Juszczyk, for example). A cornerback, with minor exceptions (including Lott), cannot.
If Jamison’s No. 22 is on the field for the 49ers on game days, his hard work, competitiveness, talent and dedication to his craft will all play roles, sure. But the key reason will be the switch to a number much better suited to his position.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3]
An undrafted #49ers rookie is standing out in training camp to Brandon Aiyuk.
By most accounts there aren’t many players on the 49ers performing better than fourth-year wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk in training camp. His dominance has carried over from OTAs where he was a standout as well.
Training camp breeds competition though, and Aiyuk playing well hasn’t stopped the 49ers’ defensive backs from chirping. One young cornerback has caught the veteran WR’s eye through the first few days of camp.
Undrafted rookie cornerback D’Shawn Jamison got an unsolicited shoutout from Aiyuk in his press conference after Sunday’s practice when he was discussing the competitive drive of San Francisco’s DBs.
“They feel like they can take it to another level and we’re out here working every single day,” Aiyuk said. “So all those guys are working from Ambry (Thomas), Demo (Deommodore Lenoir), the young guys. 22 (Jamison) he’s out there ballin’. He’s out there working, not afraid to compete at all.”
At this point of camp that’s a noteworthy inclusion from Aiyuk.
Typically when pads come on, as they will Monday for the 49ers, is when the competition really heats up. Ultimately there are some players who will shine in that environment. Others will shrink.
For an undrafted rookie like Jamison, standing out this early in camp is a terrific sign for his long-term prospects. Granted, a solitary shoutout from a receiver doesn’t mean Jamison is a lock to make the team or anything. His path to sticking around is still likely through the practice squad.
However, competitive fire will help a player survive when the reps become live and more physical. In a cornerback room that doesn’t have a ton of certainty, that could be a big deal for an undrafted player.
Ultimately how Jamison performs with pads on and in preseason games will determine his future. For now though a press conference shoutout from one of the team’s top WRs is a good start.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3]
The #49ers officially signed 14 undrafted players — 7 on each side of the ball.
The 49ers on Monday officially announced the addition of 14 undrafted free agents. San Francisco will bring in those 14 rookies along with their nine draft picks.
The 14 UDFAs are split down the middle with seven on offense and seven on defense.
DL Kevin Atkins, Fresno State
LB Jeremiah Gemmel, North Carolina
LB Marcelino McCrary-Ball, Indiana
LB Segun Olubi, San Diego State
CB Qwuantrezz Knight, UCLA
S Tayler Hawkins, San Diego State
S Leon O’Neal Jr., Texas A&M
RB Jordan Mason, Georgia Tech
WR Taysir Mack, Pittsburgh
WR Tay Martin, Oklahoma State
TE Garrett Walston, North Carolina
OL Jason Poe, Mercer
OL Sam Schlueter, Minnesota
OL Dohnovan West, Arizona State
The 49ers have a good track record of getting production from undrafted rookies either in their rookie seasons or a couple years into their careers.
San Francisco didn’t add any linebackers, safeties or tight ends in the draft. They also didn’t add any natural interior offensive linemen despite having two starting jobs open at that spot.
While this year may not be prime for UDFAs to find room on the roster, there will be some openings in the coming years that 2022 undrafted players may be able to fill.
[listicle id=677049]
Elijah Mitchell is the #49ers’ No. 1 running back and putting together a rookie season unlike any other in 49ers history.
https://embed.sendtonews.com/oembed/?SC=96RjTtJfwY-1645001-7498&format=json&offsetx=0&offsety=0&floatwidth=400&floatposition=bottom-right&float=on
[mm-video type=playlist id=01eqbxacb60r3mr0ac player_id=none image=https://ninerswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
Elijah Mitchell is different. He’s different than any running back the 49ers have had under head coach Kyle Shanahan, and through 12 weeks he’s more productive than any rookie running back in 49ers history.
Two things stick out through Mitchell’s first eight games as a pro, and Sunday’s win over the Vikings was a microcosm of what’s been so impressive about the sixth-round pick’s start.
First is the level of usage he’s seeing. He had 27 carries against Minnesota. It was his second-consecutive game with 27 attempts, and his sixth game with 17-plus carries. The 27 are more than any back has had in the regular season under Shanahan. His six games with 17-plus carries are more than any other 49ers running back since 2017.
49ers RB games with 17+ carries since 2017:
Elijah Mitchell, 6
Jeff Wilson Jr., 5
Carlos Hyde, 4
Matt Breida, 2
Tevin Coleman, 2
Raheem Mostert, 2
Jerick McKinnon, 1
Alfred Morris, 1
Trey Sermon, 1— #Kyle Madson (@KyleAMadson) November 29, 2021
The second thing is the sheer amount of yards he’s churning out. Against Minnesota he posted 133 rushing yards. It was his fourth game with 100-plus rushing yards which is more than any rookie in 49ers history. He passed Billy Kilmer, who had three in 1961.
Mitchell has taken over the lead back role since Raheem Mostert went down with an injury in Week 1 and become a lead running back in a way no player has during Shanahan’s tenure. He’s taken the opportunities and repaid the club by being their leading rusher and spearheading their offensive attack in two of their three consecutive victories.
If the 49ers are going to make any kind of playoff run, it will likely be behind their rookie, workhorse running back.
[listicle id=672224]
Watch: #49ers rookie RB Elijah Mitchell makes the NFL look easy on 1st-career TD run.
Welcome the the league, @EliMitch15! 🙌
📺 #SFvsDET on FOX pic.twitter.com/snVoimq7qr
— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) September 12, 2021
An injury to RB Raheem Mostert pushed Elijah Mitchell into a more prominent role in San Francisco’s offense. The rookie sixth-round pick didn’t take long to make an impact.
His third carry of the game was a run to the right where he hit the hole, broke a tackle, and raced for a 38-yard touchdown to put the 49ers on top of the Lions 14-7.
Growing pains for #49ers QB Trey Lance haven’t deterred the rookie from making plays in camp.
As expected, Trey Lance’s first couple training camp practices haven’t been perfect. While reporters on site have had plenty of good things to say about Lance, the rookie growing pains have been evident as well.
49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan isn’t worried about the mistakes. In fact, he told reporters he likes that the miscues haven’t deterred the first-year QB from continuing to be aggressive.
“You don’t have to get on them too much. When he doesn’t have a good throw, he knows that as much as anyone. I just like that he keeps firing it,” Shanahan said. “I mean, some are going to be good. Some are going to be bad. But, the more you get reps, the more you get your feet under you, the more you know where you’re going, the more consistent that’ll be.”
A key to a quarterback’s growth is an ability to turn those mistakes into learning opportunities. The pre-draft buzz on Lance was that he is an extremely smart player, and Shanahan said that bore itself out in meetings before the draft. It stands to reason that high football IQ is helping Lance quickly process the things he’s done wrong.
There’s still a long way for Lance to go, and he may not get significant in-game reps until 2022. As long as he continues learning and progressing on the practice field though, the arrow is going to keep trending up for the No. 3 pick.
[listicle id=667305]
49ers rookie QB Trey Lance is setting a high bar for himself going into training camp.
It’s going to be hard for the 49ers to temper expectations for No. 3 overall pick Trey Lance after they shelled out three first-round picks and a future third-round choice to move up to get him. Reports from on site at OTAs could make it difficult to tamp down on what fans want to see from Lance in his rookie season.
NBC Sports Bay Area’s Matt Maiocco was on Sports Radio KJR in Seattle during the final week of June and discussed what he saw from Lance in OTAs. While there were no bad reports about Lance’s performance in his first NFL practice, Maiocco on KJR said he noticed tangible growth from Lance during the voluntary workouts.
“The first week we went out there and he just kind of seemed to be a little bit unsure of himself — a tick slow,” Maiocco told KJR’s Ian Furness. “The ball was sailing high, you could tell there was just a lot going on in his head. Then in the next week he went out there and you could tell he was directing traffic, moving guys from spot A to spot B, and he threw the ball a little bit more accurately. It’s not often that you see a dramatic change that you can see with your naked eye.”
Maiocco said he confirmed his thoughts with 49ers general manager John Lynch, who agreed with his assessment.
It’s not a significant raising of the bar, but it offers a brighter picture than any we’d seen from the couple 49ers practices open to reporters. Head coach Kyle Shanahan said in a videoconference after OTAs that he thought Lance acquitted himself well.
“I think he did a good job. I mean, just being able to throw everything at him, you know, we got through the whole installation and be able to do that,” Shanahan said. “You know, there’s a process of it. Some days you do good, some days you do bad, but there’s a whole up and down with it that is necessary for a guy to go through. So you can get those reps, soak it in, have an idea of what it feels like. Now we have tape to show him, tape to talk to him about, he gets to get away on his own and have an idea of what’s expected out of him when he gets back.”
There was already going to be at least a little bit of a quarterback competition between Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo, and there’ve been no guarantees from Shanahan or Lynch that Garoppolo would be the starter in Week 1 at Detroit, although it seemed to be trending that way given Lance’s relatively little experience.
However, if there’s tangible growth in just a few days of practice, it may be time to rethink just how far behind Lance is in terms of where he needs to be to earn a starting job. That isn’t to say he’ll be nipping at Garoppolo’s heels on Day 1 of camp, but the notion that he can make up the ground between him and the incumbent just over the course of training camp doesn’t seem so far-fetched if he’s applying improvements and what he learned that quickly.
Whether Lance does wind up taking up all the oxygen between him and Garoppolo was always a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if.’ And no amount of slow-playing from the head coach or GM was going to slow the building excitement in the fan base for Lance’s eventual debut. If observations such as Maiocco’s continue rolling in early in camp though, that it’ll add fuel to an already burning fire and expectations for the rookie are going to explode before they simmer.
[listicle id=667113]
The San Francisco 49ers had to cut out a week of rookie development because of a rule they broke in rookie minicamp.
The San Francisco 49ers on Wednesday voluntarily cut their offseason program short. Thursday it was cut down even further because of a violation of NFL practice rules according to NFL Media’s Tom Pelissero.
The 49ers per Pelissero’s report won’t be allowed to do a week of rookie development because of a video that surfaced on social media from rookie minicamp that indicated San Francisco wasn’t following the offseason practice rules. That video showed some contact between two players when contact during that time is not permitted.
This is entirely separate from the team cancelling the final two OTAs and mandatory minicamp. Shanahan on Wednesday in a press conference said the team had been planning for awhile to cut the offseason program short for a number of reasons.
What was eliminated by the league was a rookie development week that was not football-related. NBC Sports Bay Area’s Matt Maiocco characterized the development in a tweet as, “non-football and life skills.”
The 49ers rookies that stayed behind will now likely head home and return for training camp in late July.
ESPN’s stat projections for 49ers rookie QB Trey Lance give an avenue for predicting when he’ll start.
Projecting regular-season statistics for any NFL rookie is typically a difficult task given the level of unknown in how that player will respond to the transition to the professional level. 49ers No. 3 overall pick Trey Lance comes with an added layer of difficulty because of the uncertainty as to when he’ll play.
Instead of trying to pick apart statistical projections by ESPN’s Mike Clay, we decided to take them at face value and use that as the foundation for predicting a start date for Lance.
Clay projects Lance for 2,464 passing yards and 16 touchdown passes. Lance’s numbers land him fourth among the five first-round quarterbacks. Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence leads that group with 4,269 yards and 23 touchdown throws.
Those numbers for Lance aren’t eye-popping if he starts Week 1, although they don’t factor in the impact he’ll have on the ground. Still, fewer than 3,000 passing yards seems a bit short for a full 17-game slate for the rookie, so we’re ruling that out.
The next step was to look at the halfway point – Week 9 at home against Arizona. That gives him 10 starts. Those 2,464 yards over 10 starts extrapolate out to 4,189 yards for a full year. While the 49ers would be thrilled with that level off output, it seems a little bit lofty for a quarterback that only played 17 college games.
Pushing it back just a couple games got us to a sweet spot though, and it lands in a good spot for San Francisco. With these statistical projections, Week 7 looks like a good spot to predict a first start for Lance. It’s coming out of the Bye week so the club would have an extra week to prepare for Lance’s first start on Sunday Night Football against the Colts.
Statistically he would have 12 starts with around 205 passing yards per game. The 2,464 yards expands to 3,491 over the course of a 17-game season. Lance’s 16 touchdown passes over that span project to 23 for a full year. Factoring in his ability to affect games on the ground helps justify some of the lofty numbers as a passer this early in his career since it’ll make San Francisco harder to defend.
This is obviously an inexact science and a guess based on projections that may or may not be correct. The fact is Lance has a shot to start right away if he impresses in camp. Conversely, he could be waiting awhile if the 49ers get to the Bye with only a loss or two.
So much of Lance’s future is riding on how Jimmy Garoppolo looks in camp and then as a starter assuming he’s the guy in Week 1. The 49ers have a chance to contend for a Super Bowl this year, and if Garoppolo is playing like they can win one with him, they’ll likely ride it out.
If there’s any sign of a struggle though and Lance appears ready in practice, the 49ers won’t hesitate to put him in. Week 7 seems like a good spot to guess though, and if Lance in 12 starts puts up the numbers Clay projects, he’ll be off to a great start as the team’s franchise quarterback.
[listicle id=666799]
