49er Team Needs: Addressing The Draft and Free Agency

Coach Singletary has mentioned that he wants a better pass rush and that there will be competition at QB. The obvious needs are RT and Safety. Should the 49ers draft Taylor Mays? Should they try to acquire Terrell Suggs? Let's break this down further.

The following is based on current knowledge of pending free agents. When free agency begins and teams make their cuts, there may be other prospects as well. Given Coach Sing's current push for physicality, you can probably expect to see physical prospects at RT and RB.

Much of my insight is based on what I've been hearing locally and my formulated opinion based on that. Feel free to comment and most importantly, have fun with this.

Needs - what the team is most likely to address

RT - Jonas Jennings can't stay healthy. He will be in the final year of his deal and I think the Niners will probably just cut him. Backup Barry Sims was a revolving door and most likely won't be back. Adam Snyder played well, but was not dominant. Snyder is most valuable as the swingman that can backup every position on the line except center.

Free agency will be deep with linemen. Jordan Gross, Stacy Andrews, Vernon Carey, Marvel Smith, Mark Tauscher are some of free agent tackles that will be available. This is by far the deepest position in free agency. There will most likely be a top five tackle available when we draft too.

But other team needs will be hard to address in free agency. So my hope is that the Niners take advantage of the availability of free agent tackles and use their first round pick to address another need. Depth could be addressed in later rounds.

S - Mark Roman is the weakest link in the secondary. I haven't heard Sing mention any upgrades here but it's clearly obvious that Roman did not play well. There will be no quality safeties in this year's crop of free agents.

My suggestion would be to draft Taylor Mays with the 10th overall pick. At this time, he is slated to fall to 10. After the combine, that may change.

Pass rusher/OLB - This could be a 3-4 OLB or a 4-3 DE. Singletary was very vocal about upgrading this area. He may actually perceive this as the team's greatest need. There are only a couple of big names out there but Terrell Suggs would be the best fit. Suggs plays in a similar read and react hybrid 3-4/4-3 defense in Baltimore. Sing's connections with the Ravens

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