2021 49ers offseason

[CrimsonCrew]

Other than the potential STs contribution, dropping Lee for Fowler is a real head-scratcher for me. They've been in the league the same number of years, but Lee was much more highly regarded coming out, and has been much more productive. He's got twice as many career yards, and his best season saw 500 more yards than Fowler's best. And I'm looking for a guy to be our third or fourth WR. I'm not looking for a STs ace (I may be looking for that, too, but that's not what I was looking for with Lee; we need actually bodies to compete at the WR position). Personally, I would have gone with a guy like Lee over Sanu and Benjamin.

I guess I just don't see this WR group as being anywhere near as talented as the FO apparently does. There's so much projection to anticipate contributions from anyone outside the top two or possibly three.

My guess is that the coaches are looking at two things that Fowler brings that our current receiving corps is lacking: speed and reliability. With the caveat that playing speed isn't always the same as 40 time, Fowler's 4.38 is faster than our other receivers and certainly faster than Lee. Reliability is also missing among our current receivers since Fowler has never missed a pro game due to injury. Neither Deebo, Aiyuk, Hurd nor Lee can make that claim.

Fowler ran a 4.52 at the combine, same as Lee. Looks like his pro day was much faster, but those times are inherently less reliable.

He's more reliable to play, but less reliable to actually do anything when he does.

[CrimsonCrew]

Are there big slot WRs who produce?

Many of the best slot WRs are these shorter guys with short-area quickness to get quick separation on the breaks, often on underneath patterns.

Maybe Kyle plans to use him more in the run game, both as a ball carrier and blocker at the edge.

Sure. Marques Colston leaps to mind, though that's a dated reference at this point. JuJu Smith-Schuster isn't Hurd big, but he's a bigger guy who plays from the slot a lot. Ceedee Lamb mostly played from the slot, and he's got good size. Davante Adams played almost half his snaps from the slot last year. Same with Chris Godwin. Cooper Kupp mostly plays from the slot. Keenan Allen is mostly a slot guy.

Outside of Colston, none of those guys have Hurd's size, but they're all bigger WRs generally. I think it can still be a scheme fit. In terms of less prominent players, Allen Lazard has similar size and mostly plays from the slot (granted he's been somewhat inconsistent). Jordan Matthews is at least in the ballpark and played primarily from the slot (also not all that well). There just aren't that many guys with that size in the league in general, and most of those don't have the lateral agility to play inside. But Hurd is a different story with his RB experience and movement skills. Hopefully.

I left out Michael Thomas, arguably the best recent example of a successful big slot.

[Samurai]

Other than the potential STs contribution, dropping Lee for Fowler is a real head-scratcher for me. They've been in the league the same number of years, but Lee was much more highly regarded coming out, and has been much more productive. He's got twice as many career yards, and his best season saw 500 more yards than Fowler's best. And I'm looking for a guy to be our third or fourth WR. I'm not looking for a STs ace (I may be looking for that, too, but that's not what I was looking for with Lee; we need actually bodies to compete at the WR position). Personally, I would have gone with a guy like Lee over Sanu and Benjamin.

I guess I just don't see this WR group as being anywhere near as talented as the FO apparently does. There's so much projection to anticipate contributions from anyone outside the top two or possibly three.

My guess is that the coaches are looking at two things that Fowler brings that our current receiving corps is lacking: speed and reliability. With the caveat that playing speed isn't always the same as 40 time, Fowler's 4.38 is faster than our other receivers and certainly faster than Lee. Reliability is also missing among our current receivers since Fowler has never missed a pro game due to injury. Neither Deebo, Aiyuk, Hurd nor Lee can make that claim.

Fowler ran a 4.52 at the combine, same as Lee. Looks like his pro day was much faster, but those times are inherently less reliable.

He's more reliable to play, but less reliable to actually do anything when he does.

You asked about why drop Lee for Fowler. Lee never ran a 4.38; not at the combine, pro day or in his best dreams. Therefore it is less likely he can play anywhere close to that speed than Fowler, which makes them different. And we have had days where we weren't even sure we could find enough WR bodies to suit up, so availability does become important. That is another difference. No one is pretending that these traits make Fowler a Pro Bowl receiver; we are talking about bottom of the barrel guys to fill out a roster. If Hurd is actually healthy (which is a huge 'if'), I'm not sure Lee brings anything to the table that Hurd doesn't. If Lynch and Shanahan would rather have a guy that brings two things that we currently don't have much of rather than someone who doesn't, I don't see taking Fowler over Lee as such a head-scratcher.

[CrimsonCrew]

It's a valid point on availability, especially for camp. And maybe I'm overrating what Lee is/was. I thought he could legitimately challenge to be our primary slot receiver, not so much because of his abilities, but because of what else we have there. He also always seemed like a guy who was about to take the next step, but never really got there, so I thought, even at his age, there might be some untapped potential in the right situation. But hey, I haven't seen the guy play in four or five years.

[wco81]

I remember Lee at USC, making these TO-like runs with long YAC.

Turned out he wasn't that big nor fast and Pac 10 defenses were poor.

[CrimsonCrew]

Niners showing some interest in Dede Westbrook. Makes some sense. Prior to last year, he was a pretty good slot receiver. At least the team appears to recognize our glaring need. If he's healthy, I'd give him pretty good odds of making the roster and contributing, though I said the same thing about Marqise Lee.

[CrimsonCrew]

Some insight on cutting Lee: apparently his knee started acting up again, and he had signed an injury waiver so they let him go.

[tres]

DAMN!

Read on Twitter

[CrimsonCrew]

Honestly, this isn't such a bad thing. He was in danger of not making the roster, so now he can start on the pup list, and possibly come back for a late-season run. Of all positions for us to lose someone oh, this is by far the best. Or at least the least bad.

[arich35]

Honestly, this isn't such a bad thing. He was in danger of not making the roster, so now he can start on the pup list, and possibly come back for a late-season run. Of all positions for us to lose someone oh, this is by far the best. Or at least the least bad.

I wonder if this is why we drafted 2 RBs and signed one, or if this just recently happened

[Jikkle]

DAMN!

Read on Twitter

As much as I like Jeff Wilson it's the only position group we could afford to take a hit in. Trey Sermon is the better version of him anyways so I think he would've been depth and not a major contributor this season.

[Samurai]

Honestly, this isn't such a bad thing. He was in danger of not making the roster, so now he can start on the pup list, and possibly come back for a late-season run. Of all positions for us to lose someone oh, this is by far the best. Or at least the least bad.

Was he really in danger of not making the roster? Numerous articles had Mostert and Wilson as the only two "sure things" on the RB depth chart with the remaining positions up for grabs. I would have thought that Wilson did more than enough last season to show his value to the team.

[CrimsonCrew]

Honestly, this isn't such a bad thing. He was in danger of not making the roster, so now he can start on the pup list, and possibly come back for a late-season run. Of all positions for us to lose someone oh, this is by far the best. Or at least the least bad.

Was he really in danger of not making the roster? Numerous articles had Mostert and Wilson as the only two "sure things" on the RB depth chart with the remaining positions up for grabs. I would have thought that Wilson did more than enough last season to show his value to the team.

I think he was. He's a UDFA on a one-year RFA contract, and under 1,000 yards rushing in three seasons. His per-game totals have been pretty inconsistent, with a few big games balanced by many pretty mediocre games. He's a decent receiver, but he only caught 1/3 of his targets over the last five games of the season. His athletic measurables were fine, but are comparable to or worse than Sermon's across the board, and markedly worse than Mitchell's.

Going into this season, Mostert and Sermon were both clearly ahead of Wilson in terms of priority. Wilson was in good shape to make the roster and would probably be considered third in the pecking order, particularly as he has some STs experience, but it's jumbled after the first two. He's more expensive and older than Mitchell and Hasty, and has less of a track record than Gallman. Realistically, I think he and Gallman were probably competing for the same spot, and I wouldn't have been shocked by either guy coming out ahead.

[CrimsonCrew]

Interesting tidbit, as I was reading up on our RBs: Elijah Mitchell dropped 14 pounds between the Senior Bowl weigh-in and his pro day. That's a lot for a guy who was 215 at his heaviest. Interesting to see if he bulks back up after that. Banks also shed a lot of weight, but I get the sense he'll try to keep that off as it wasn't good weight. Mitchell would be somewhat undersized at 201, and likely dropped weight to run faster (which clearly worked, as he had a very strong pro day). I'd think he'll try to put at least some of that back on to endure the pounding of RB in the NFL.

[Samurai]

Honestly, this isn't such a bad thing. He was in danger of not making the roster, so now he can start on the pup list, and possibly come back for a late-season run. Of all positions for us to lose someone oh, this is by far the best. Or at least the least bad.

I wonder if this is why we drafted 2 RBs and signed one, or if this just recently happened

Apparently this happened after a workout last Thursday. According to Matt Barrows, after the workout with some teammates Wilson returned to the locker room. As he stood up and turned, he felt a pop and his knee "got stuck". He knew something was wrong; he had surgery the following day. When asked, Lynch said the team is not looking to add a RB despite Wilson's injury because the team is deep with 5 halfbacks and 2 fullbacks.

[CrimsonCrew]

Read that. Screwy. Got to be about the weirdest way I've heard of a guy suffering a serious injury. It makes me tearing my Achilles playing flag football look positively badass by comparison.

Tough break for him, but if he can make it back, he has a chance to make a difference for us down the stretch and (hopefully) in the playoffs.

[Scoots1994]

Read that. Screwy. Got to be about the weirdest way I've heard of a guy suffering a serious injury. It makes me tearing my Achilles playing flag football look positively badass by comparison.

Tough break for him, but if he can make it back, he has a chance to make a difference for us down the stretch and (hopefully) in the playoffs.

My knees have not been reliable since an injury playing basketball as a high school freshman. I never know when they will act up. I partially tore my MCL walking through my kitchen in my 30s. I broke my back and since then I never know when it's going to act up doing stupid little things.

At least he didn't get injured falling off his car ... don't remember who did that years ago.

[CrimsonCrew]

Delanie Walker in for a workout today, and the team added WR Andy Jones. Cut Josh Johnson.

It's funny, I was listening to a podcast reviewing the senior bowl this morning while driving to work, and literally thinking to myself, "Why didn't they cut Josh Johnson and add a second UDFA WR?"

[CrimsonCrew]

Re: Jones, he's got good size and jumping ability (6'1", 217, 41.5" vert and 11' 1" broad), but below average speed and quickness (4.55 40, 4.35 shuttle, 6.97 three-cone). Probably a STs type.

[CrimsonCrew]

Worth noting they cut two players, possibly in anticipation of signing Walker.