San Francisco 49ers: Following Gut Feelings in the 2015 NFL Draft

In the four and a half months since the San Francisco 49ers last took the field, we’ve broken down their draft possibilities in almost every way possible.

We’ve done mock draft after mock draft after mock draft.  We’ve looked at what positions in the draft provide the most value per pick for the 49ers and considered whether first-round receivers are more risky than other positions.  We’ve looked at the sorts of players the 15th overall pick normally nets you and potential trade partners in case that spot isn’t good enough.  We’ve looked at best-case scenarios, worst-case scenarios and contingency plans.  We’ve looked at Trent Baalke’s draft history to try to get inside his head.

In short, the draft has been dissected every which way over the past four months and will be again over the remaining 90 hours or so until the draft actually begins.  At this point, there’s very little to do but wait and see what actually will happen.

Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

Having run and re-run the draft multiple times, participating in mock drafts both solo and with other writers, I’ve come up with several biases and opinions of my own—gut feelings, in other words, about what the 49ers will do.  All writers have them; it’s what caused Mel Kiper to put Breshad Perriman in the top 15 months before any other writer, or why Mike Mayock keeps Paul Dawson as his top linebacker even as consensus has moved away from him thanks to poor workout performances.  They aren’t always backed up by solid data or evidence; they’re just feelings generated from watching hours of tape and planning and re-planning scenarios.

I’ve gone through the first three rounds and tried to lay out my gut feelings here about who the 49ers will pick, coming up with the 10 most likely scenarios at each of the 49ers first three picks.  I’ll try to justify them as much as I can, but this isn’t based on parsing through Trent Baalke speeches to try to find a secret code or by charting which players have visited the franchise or not.  It’s just one writer’s opinion, based on having written tens of thousands of words on the subject between the end of the regular season and now.

It’s not a list of the best player at each position, but simply the most likely players for the 49ers to take.  A player like Amari Cooper would be an easy pick for the 49ers in the first round, but the odds of him being available when the 49ers are on the clock is lower than that of, say, DeVante Parker, so the odds the 49ers end up with Cooper are lower.

Round 1

1. Breshad Perriman, WR, UCF
2. Jaelen Strong, WR, Arizona State
3. DeVante Parker, WR, Louisville
4. Kevin White, WR, West Virginia
5. Amari Cooper, WR, Alabama
6. Nelson Agholor, WR, USC
7. Arik Armstead, DE, Oregon
8. Malcom Brown, DT, Texas
9. Trae Waynes, CB, Michigan State
10. Marcus Peters, CB, Washington

Rick Scuteri/Associated Press

Even as the 49ers’ offseason needs have evolved, thanks to the addition of Torrey Smith and the departures of Chris Culliver, Patrick Willis and Chris Borland, I still can’t shake the feeling that the 49ers are going to take their first first-round receiver since the A.J. Jenkins debacle of 2012.

Arik Armstead seems to be the plurality among mocks at the moment, but I think that’s just an artifact of the fact that most mocks don’t include trades.  There’s a bit of a hole between the top three receivers in Cooper, White and Parker and the next batch, so if the top three receivers are gone, it would make sense to go in a different direction if the team was pinned down to that spot.

They’re not pinned down, though.  This feels like a situation where they trade back no more than 10 or 11 slots and take a receiver at the end of the first round, trying to pick up an extra third-rounder in return.  Armstead is too raw, and the 49ers might well have Justin Smith back anyway.  The 49ers have been looking for a top receiver essentially since Terrell Owens left in 2003.  They’ve made poor picks like Jenkins or Rashaun Woods and passed up on studs like DeAndre Hopkins, Demaryius Thomas and Dez Bryant.  It’s time to get that position locked down.

Perhaps the position where I differ the most from common wisdom is cornerback.  Analysts see the 49ers losing both Chris Culliver and Perrish Cox a year after losing Tarell Brown and Carlos Rogers and plugging a top cornerback onto the roster.  While there certainly is room for one, the 49ers have used first-round picks in the secondary both of the past two years, as well as four overall picks on cornerbacks just last season.  I don’t see them doubling down this early.

I also don’t see them taking an offensive lineman in the first round.  The only place on the line that there’s an opening is left guard, and the 49ers spent a high draft pick last season on Brandon Thomas out of Clemson to fill that role.  I think they’ll be looking at a player who will compete for a swing tackle or potential starting guard role next season rather than using a high pick on a player who can come in and start in 2015 there.

Round 2

1. Denzel Perryman, ILB, Miami (FL)
2. Eric Kendricks, ILB, UCLA
3. Preston Smith, DE, Mississippi State
4. Byron Jones, CB, Connecticut
5. Stephone Anthony, ILB, Clemson
6. Mario Edwards, DE, Florida State
7. Hau’oli Kikaha, OLB, Washington
8. Breshad Perriman, WR, UCF
9. Sammie Coates, WR, Auburn
10. Paul Dawson, ILB, TCU

Brynn Anderson/Associated Press

I feel sure that the 49ers will use one of their first two picks on a receiver and the other on a defender—likely an inside linebacker.  While value could be found here at cornerback if someone like Byron Jones slips, this really feels like a slot to try to replace Patrick Willis more than anything else, or find Justin Smith’s replacement if none of the linebackers really thrill them.

To get Kendricks, the 49ers would likely have to trade up a few slots toward the beginning of the second round, rather than just hoping he falls to the 46th pick.  Perryman, on the other hand, is someone the 49ers could deal back and likely pick up—in the Bleacher Report community mock draft, he actually fell to the 49ers’ pick in the third round, as Peter Panacy will detail later this week.

I don’t think Perryman is falling to the third round in the real world, where trades and moves can be made, so it would behoove the 49ers to make the inside linebacker pick here.  I see them taking whichever of Perryman or Kendricks falls to them, making appropriate small trades for value purposes.  If there’s a surprising rush, then defensive end is definitely in play here, but I can’t really imagine the scenario in which the linebackers and defensive ends are depleted enough that they go very far away from boosting the depleted front seven.

Round 3

1. Mario Edwards, DE, Florida State
2. Hau’oli Kikaha, OLB, Washington
3. Clive Walford, TE, Miami (FL)
4. Denzel Perryman, ILB, Miami (FL)
5. Eric Rowe, CB, Utah
6. Ameer Abdullah, RB, Nebraska
7. Trey Flowers, DE, Arkansas
8. Cedric Ogbuehi, OT, Texas A&M
9. Mike Bennett, DT, Ohio State
10. Preston Smith, DE, Mississippi State

Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

The 49ers' needs are spread out in such a way that they can mostly take the best player available and be happy with them.  There’s no need to reach for a player thanks to desperate need; they mostly have a moderate need across the board.  They’re not one player away from moving up in the NFL’s hierarchy, like the Chiefs are at receiver or the Bills are at quarterback; they’ve been pretty uniformly hit by personnel changes.

Thus, the third-round pick will likely be whichever key player drops the most.  I feel it’s more likely than not, for example, that Mario Edwards will be gone by the time the 49ers are on the clock in the third round.  Similarly, I feel that Hau’oli Kikaha will be gone when the 79th pick rolls around.  There’s a good chance, however, that one of the two will fall—or it could be Preston Smith or someone of that nature.  Someone will fall through the cracks, and the 49ers can grab him.

I feel it’s probably an edge player at this point in the draft, just considering the available levels of talent and the odds that the 49ers would have addressed the receiver and inside linebacker positions earlier.  I’m not fully convinced it will be, however—this position is a lot more open than the first two rounds.  Once the biggest needs are taken care of, the 49ers can freelance some, and I think this is where you’ll see Trent Baalke show off the form that has created the most excess draft value per season since 2011, according to Football Outsiders.  Baalke is Belichick-esque at maneuvering on the draft board, and he’ll exploit inefficiencies and slides to find talent later than should be possible.

Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers.  Follow him @BryKno on twitter.