The San Francisco 49ers are a team built to win, and moving up to the 3rd pick in the draft shows their willingness to do so.
Football fans who know San Francisco 49ers GM John Lynch knows that he is an aggressive individual, and his latest move is no surprise. That is unless you happen to have seen how he traded two future first-round picks, a third-round pick, and swapped first-rounders with the Miami Dolphins to land the 3rd overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft per Adam Schefter.
There’s no way you make this move unless you believe that there is a prospect on the board worth mortgaging the future for. Given the magnitude, it’s fair to assume that the decision will affect the quarterback position. Fortunately for Lynch, there is a hefty crop of quarterbacks that he can choose from if that’s the route he chooses to pursue.
Trevor Lawrence is already choosing his gear for Jacksonville, so that’s off the board. But what if, by chance, Zach Wilson, whom many have mocked to the Jets at #2, slips past that pick and ends up falling to 3rd overall? Would the Niners grab him? For sure. But he probably would be gone and as a result, what exactly San Francisco is going to do is a mystery.
The San Francisco 49ers made a bold move that the future will be murky if it goes wrong.
There’s no reason to doubt that John Lynch will make the right call. He’s seen how draft picks are valuable, especially those in the top 5. Case in point? Nick Bosa. The former No. 2 overall pick has been a lynchpin on the defense and is considered among the league’s better players.
Nevertheless, Lynch knows that when a team makes a bold move up, and the decision goes wrong, it can set the franchise back for a long time. He saw what Chicago did a couple of years ago and grab Mitchell Trubisky after they traded with him to move up one slot.
At the end of the day, San Francisco made an aggressive move to go up the draft board. What they end up doing may end up depending on what the Jets choose to pursue. The waiting game has begun in the Bay Area.