Teams will drive themselves crazy attempting to replicate the Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl run. All you need is an elite defense and special teams unit paired with an offense that boasts one of the best wide receivers in the game. Good luck with that.
The San Francisco 49ers won 12 games in the regular season, which ended up being the third most in the NFC. It was also tied with the third most in the division. Despite those 12 wins, there was a clear divide on who the contenders were. The Seahawks
and Rams had point differentials of +191 and +172, while the Niners were third at +66.
Draft woes
Injuries not only lowered the ceiling for the 49ers, it also threw a wrench in the development of Mykel Williams. Getting Fred Warner and Nick Bosa back defensively will go a long way. But the previous couple of draft classes have put the Niners in a bind.
That’s the biggest difference between the Seahawks and the 49ers.
Seattle’s 2023 first-round picks were Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Devon Witherspoon, two of the best players at their positions. Trades meant the 49ers didn’t have a pick until the third round, where they selected Ji’Ayir Brown.
Seattle took Byron Murphy in the first round of 2024. They traded their second-round pick of that draft for defensive tackle Leonard Williams. Those two were the most dynamic defensive tackle duo in the league last season.
While Ricky Pearsall has shown promise, the duo of him and Renardo Green doesn’t sniff the production of those defensive tackles. Both have missed time due to injury, and when drafting older players who spent four years in college, their developmental curve/ceiling is lower than that of players like Mykel Williams.
Then, there’s last year, when Seattle took a left guard that had few flaws in the first round and a 6’3” nickel who ran a 4.3 in the second round. San Francisco planned to get beefier up front, so Williams and Alfred Collins were the selections. Williams suffered a season-ending knee injury, while Collins, another fifth-year player, did not produce like a top-50 pick.
Will the lack of getting any production from the previous three drafts cause the 49ers front office to shift how they approach this offseason? Having a first-round pick is extremely valuable. But teams have been more willing to part ways with their Day 1 picks for superstar players.
Finding fits in free agency
The 49ers need to find an interior pass rush. Collins, CJ West, and even a healthy Mykel didn’t bring much to the table as rookies. Could they develop? Sure. Will it help playing next to Bosa? Of course. That doesn’t guarantee results, though.
Jordan Elliott, Kevin Givens, and Yetur Gross-Matos are all unrestricted free agents. There is a need at defensive tackle. The good news is you already have the run stuffers, so the team can narrow it down to a disruptive veteran.
One veteran that the 49ers should strongly consider is John Franklin-Myers from the Broncos. He had back-to-back seasons with seven sacks. Franklin-Myers has had six seasons in a row of at least 40 pressures. He’s done that while playing just under 50 percent of the snaps in the previous two seasons. So, you let the run stuffers do their thing, and Franklin-Myers comes in and is productive in situations where he excels.
Franklin_myers pressured the quarterback at a higher percentage than both Seahawks tackles and was on par with names like Quinnen Williams. He is the missing 3-technique in this defense.
Watching Franklin-Myers’ pressures, he won in 1-on-1 situations multiple ways, won on the move, and created havoc for his teammates. Pair him with Mykel on passing situations with Bosa and Huff on the outside, and it would be the first time in a few seasons that the 49ers would boast a pass rush that other teams would fear.
Spotrac’s market value for Franklin-Myers comes in at $7.9 million. He’ll be 30 by Week 1, but a 2-year, $16 million deal for a pass rusher who fits what you want to do and can complement the other defensive tackles makes too much sense for San Francisco.
Now that we’ve addressed the pass rush, let’s find the secondary some help.
During Raheem Morris’s first season as the defensive coordinator and interim head coach of the Falcons in 2020, Atlanta drafted a safety in the fourth round from California. He started 16 games in 2022. This past season, Jaylinn Hawkins played 91 percent of the snaps for the Patriots and every snap in the postseason. Hawkins was targeted on 3.8 percent of his snaps in zone coverage, which was the fifth-lowest mark of any player with at least 200 snaps in zone. Hawkins allowed 0.1 yards per snap, which was the fewest in the NFL, and second-fewest in the last four seasons.
The 49ers desperately need a free safety for Morris’s scheme. Well, how about the one he drafted and the one who just started for the team that made the Super Bowl?
Hawkins played 601 of his 798 snaps from the free safety alignment. From there, he had 50 tackles and 11 stops. In coverage, he was targeted 18 times. Hawkins allowed a passer rating of 27.3 and had four interceptions.
There’s some versatility to his game, too. Hawkins lined up at linebacker 101 times, in the slot 64 times, and even on the edge 13 times. Hawkins rushed the passer 18 times and managed five quarterback pressures, three “quick” pressures, and 1.5 sacks.
The 49ers were near the top of the league last season in not allowing the big play. The problem is their safeties didn’t play the ball in the air well at all. That is not an issue for Hawkins, who gets good jumps on the ball and tracks the ball in the air like an outfielder in baseball.
Unlike the current safeties on the roster, Hawkins is better the further away he gets from the line of scrimmage. Hawkins also had a missed tackle percentage of 13.1 percent, which was nearly 10 and 14 percentage points better than the starters’ last season.
Man coverage isn’t his strength, and this shouldn’t eliminate the team from drafting a safety, but it means you get a player who fits the scheme and who has produced at a high level in this league. Spotrac’s market valuation for Hawkins is $8.3 million annually. So that’s two starters we’re adding for around $8 million.
Do the 49ers swing big in the trade market?
Part of the reason a Mac Jones trade should still be on the table is due to the draft pick he’d fetch. You could theoretically use the second or third round pick you get in a Jones trade and flip that to acquire, say, an A.J. brown or a Maxx Crosby.
This is a deep draft at wide receiver. That does not mean any of them is A.J. Brown. Moving Crosby is easier than Brown’s deal. Philly would incur a dead cap of over $40 million, while the Raiders would only eat $5 million in dead cap. There are issues with both that could prevent either from being traded.
Crosby has played more than 300 snaps more than the next edge rusher since 2021. There are a lot of miles on the soon-to-be 29-year-old. The fear would be that you’re no longer getting the peak version of Crosby, and if you are, that play won’t last much longer.
Then again, he’d be playing next to Bosa, Franklin-Myers in this situation, and if there were ever a scenario for Mykel to flourish, it would be playing alongside those three. So the deal helps everybody involved.
Brown is under contract through his being 32. As somebody who has been battling hamstring injuries for two seasons, the last thing you want to do is unload a first-round pick for a player who could miss multiple games. Plus, that will inevitably lead to, or at least make you question, how those injuries will impact Brown’s speed moving forward.
But it’s A.J. Brown. He’s the kind of player who has done nothing but win in 1-on-1 situations, and would be the kind of playmaker the 49ers are desperate for. It could even be a deal the 49ers work out before the draft, and if a wide receiver they don’t like isn’t available, pull the trigger on draft day.
Finding a playmaker this offseason is imperative, whether it’s Brown or one early in the draft. Adding a wide receiver like Brown and then drafting another in the third round, let’s say De’Zhaun Stribling in this hypothetical, would put the 49ers right back in the contenders chair.
