The 49ers will enter the 2023 draft in a unique spot. They hold 11 picks, but none until No. 99 and eight of their selections come in the final three rounds. San Francisco can and should be heavily involved in the trade market during the draft, but there’s a way they can maneuver and handful of times to target players they like without swinging for the fences.
On the surface a trade up for the 49ers might involve packaging all of their third-round picks to leap up into the second round. It’s the quickest route to securing any kind of premium draft capital and general manager John Lynch hasn’t been averse to throwing around draft picks to swing big trades, but San Francisco can afford to act more prudently with its 11 selections.
Here are some ideas we put together on how the 49ers can trade some of their draft capital to better distribute their selections in this year’s draft. Trade values are grabbed from the Rich Hill model on Draft Tek:
Nice deal with the Rams
Rams get: Nos. 99 and 102
49ers get: No. 69
This leaves San Francisco with a pair of third-round picks, including the No. 6 selection in the round. That’s a much better place to start the draft that No. 99.
Move it back
Browns get: No. 101
49ers get: Nos. 111 and 190
Instead of using that additional third-round pick, the 49ers can slide back 10 spots and pick up some later draft capital for future movement.
Run it back later
Raiders get: Nos. 164, 190 and 247
49ers get: No. 141
Packaging the middle of their two fifth-round picks with the sixth they acquired from Cleveland and one of their own sevenths allows the 49ers to get another top 150 selection near the top of Round 5.
Choose your own adventure
There’s some additional maneuverability with their handful of picks outside the top 200 if they really want to target a specific player, but given their success with selections in the late stages of Day 3, it might behoove them to hold onto some of those picks for additional throws at the dartboard. That strategy will probably give them a better shot than trying to hit a bullseye with a pick late in the sixth round or early in the seventh.
Final count
Here’s what the 49ers’ draft board would look like after all of our trades:
Round 3, Pick 69
Round 4, Pick 111
Round 5, Pick 141
Round 5, Pick 155
Round 5, Pick 173
Round 6, Pick 216
Round 7, Pick 222
Round 7, Pick 253
Round 7, Pick 255
With this iteration of their board, they still hold only one pick in the top 100, but it’s in the top 70 instead of the 99th selection. They also maintain their three picks in the top 150 while also moving up and keeping all three selections in the round where they’ve had a ton of success under Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan.
It’s important to note that there’s no dramatic change in the total value of this draft via the trade chart, but that’s because we built all the trades on numbers alone. Instead of 141 points with 11 picks, they have 140 points with nine selections.
Picks during the actual draft will mean more to different teams and trading up won’t be as easy as adding up numbers on a chart. Instead this is meant to illustrate how San Francisco can make some deals that don’t involve them blowing up all their capital for one swift move up in the draft.
Over the course of the three days, expect the 49ers to be active in the trade market, just with multiple smaller moves instead of one big one.
