Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
The San Francisco 49ers have had a lot of success with their undrafted rookies. Can the 2021 class have an immediate impact?
The San Francisco 49ers under general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan have had a ton of success with their undrafted rookies.
This year’s class was only four players deep though thanks in part to a good-sized draft class and a number of key free agents returning.
Here’s a quick look at the 49ers’ 2021 undrafted rookie class and the potential roles they could take on in their first seasons:
The San Francisco 49ers draft class was small and didn’t offer a ton of contributions as a whole.
The 49ers put together a relatively small 2020 draft class thanks to a couple of trades that landed them rookie wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk and veteran left tackle Trent Williams.
San Francisco went into the draft only needing a couple rookies to help with some depth. They wound up needing to lean on some of their picks more than they may have anticipated. How did those first-year players fare? We went through and gave Year 1 grades for each pick. Keep in mind these are only grades for this season and not a judgement of the pick as a whole.
Here they are:
Javon Kinlaw is already learning how to learn in the NFL, and that’s great news for the 49ers and his future.
[jwplayer uiO8bQ7W-ThvAeFxT]
49ers rookie defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw after seven games is still in search of his first sack and his first tackle for loss. While the job of a defensive tackle can be relatively thankless because of the outside-the-box-score impact they can have, Kinlaw’s rookie season hasn’t been great. There have been good plays and bad plays, but defensive coordinator Robert Saleh likes what he sees from the No. 14 overall pick because of what’s happening outside the lines.
Kinlaw may not be producing at a high level yet, and growing pains were certainly expected in a year with a limited offseason, but Saleh said the rookie is growing each game because of his ability to rapidly notice and fix mistakes.
“He’s learning something new every single game. I think it was a couple of games ago, he had some opportunities in pass rush and a couple of them, we talked about it and he knew exactly what happened,” Saleh told reporters in a video conference Thursday. “He’s like, ‘Man, I wish I would have,’ but that all comes with time and experience. So, for Javon, it’s continue to stay the course. Continue to find ways to get better, but what’s encouraging about him is he’s recognizing when he could have done better on a play and you’re not seeing the same mistake twice.
“If you have a player who can recognize things that happen that quickly, he doesn’t need to go to the film room. He just knows it happened. When they’re able to recognize it on the fly like that and make a self in-game adjustment, you know that those players have a chance to be very special.”
Kinlaw has posted 11 pressures, two quarterback hits and nine run stops while playing 60.9 percent of the snaps — third-most on the club among defensive linemen.
There’s a chance the numbers stay low for Kinlaw all year just given the learning curve and the nature of the position. Learning on the fly though will put Kinlaw ahead of that curve going into Year 2. He’s also had a couple of plays each game where everything clicks and it’s clear what type of player he can be.
Saleh said there’s a clear road map for Kinlaw to reach the potential the team saw when they made him their first pick in this year’s draft.
“For him, it’s just continue to get better,” Saleh said. “Continue to focus on all those little details and he’s going to be a good one. You can mark my words on that one.”
The 49ers had three first-year players land on the Pro Football Focus All-Rookie team.
The 49ers badly needed their 2019 draft class to step up if the team was going to be a factor in a loaded NFC. Their 13-3 finish and No. 1 seed in the NFC are a good indicator of how effective their rookies were.
Anyone who watched the 49ers on a regular basis knew the impact the first-year players were having, and it’s the reason three of their draft picks landed on the 2019 Pro Football Focus All-Rookie Team.
Two players on San Francisco’s terrific defense landed on the football analytics site’s star-studded group of first-year players.
The first is defensive end and No. 2 overall pick Nick Bosa. Bosa was also the PFF Defensive Rookie of the Year. None of this should come as a surprise. Bosa racked up 9.0 sacks, 16 tackles for loss, 25 quarterback hits, two pass breakups, an interception, a forced fumble and two fumble recoveries.
If it seemed like Bosa was in the backfield on just about every play – it’s because he was. PFF had the Ohio State product down for 80 quarterback pressures, which is 14 more than any other rookie since PFF started tracking that data in 2006.
The other player to land on the PFF All-Rookie squad is fifth-round linebacker Dre Greenlaw.
Greenlaw landed a starting job as the Sam linebacker in base packages. While it is technically a starting role, Greenlaw was regularly playing less than 30 percent of the snaps. His stock started climbing when Kwon Alexander got hurt in Week 11, and Greenlaw found himself in the starting Will linebacker spot, which effectively made him an every-down player on the 49ers’ defense.
The former Arkansas Razorback responded in a big way. He racked up 87 tackles, three tackles for loss, one sack, one interception and two pass breakups.
Coverage is where PFF really recognized Greenlaw though. In a league where having linebackers that can cover is more paramount to defensive success than ever, Greenlaw was among the NFL’s best in 2019:
He was one of the best linebackers in the league at limiting receiving production. Among linebackers who were targeted 50 or more times this year, only Darius Leonard, Jayon Brown and Eric Kendricks allowed a lower passer rating than Greenlaw’s mark of 83.6.
The final 49er on the PFF All-Rookie Team was on the offensive side – wide receiver Deebo Samuel.
Samuel, the No. 36 overall pick in 2019, came on strong at the end of the year and wound up with one of the best rookie seasons ever for a 49ers wide receiver. He finished with 57 receptions, 802 receiving yards and three touchdowns, along with 14 carries for 159 yards and three touchdowns. His 961 yards from scrimmage were the most ever by a 49ers rookie receiver.
The remarkable part about Samuel’s season is that after Week 9, he had just 26 catches, 258 yards and one touchdown. As the stage grew, so did Samuel’s production. Over the final eight games, Samuel had 35 receptions for 575 yards and two touchdowns. 122 of his rushing yards and two of his rushing touchdowns also came in the latter half of the season.
San Francisco wasn’t going to go 4-12 again this season as long as Jimmy Garoppolo was healthy, but their path to achieving the heights they reached in 2019 had to involve their rookies. Any level of production would’ve been good, but top-end work from Bosa, Greenlaw and Samuel helped elevate the 49ers on both sides of the ball. It also sets them up to contend for multiple years, especially if next year’s class is as good as this one.
