Here is the whole article, with a link as omitted by shitposting OP
Ready to Be a 49er?’ Inside San Francisco’s Draft Room
http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/05/01/...aft-room-bears-trade-reuben-foster-peter-king
Trades to move up, deals to slide down and the selection of a player not even on the board. John Lynch’s first draft had everything, including historical parallels that gave the rookie GM goose bumps. How it all went down, plus notes on best picks, the Bears’ rationale and more from Philly
In the 24/7/365 media crushing of the NFL, somehow the significance of this San Francisco draft was, if anything, being underplayed last week. Think of the historic similarities to the only great era in Niners history.
In the spring of 1979, the 49ers were coming off a 2-14 season, with a new coach/GM, without a quarterback of the future, and with a 30-something owner. Entering the draft last week, the 49ers were coming off a 2-14 season, with a new coach and GM, without a quarterback of the future, and with a 30-something owner.
When I pitched the inside story about the new 49ers regime’s first draft to Lynch at the NFL owners meetings in March, I explained the similarities between Bill Walsh’s start 38 years ago and the new start now. “You just gave me goose bumps,” Lynch said. And so this story was born.
There was one major difference. In 1979, the Niners were a year removed from making one of the worst trades in NFL history: acquiring a broken-down O.J. Simpson from Buffalo for five draft choices, including the first overall pick in the 1979 draft. Simpson had 108 rushing yards in his first Niners home game, and never had another impactful game in his last 21 for San Francisco. But that trade actually was to the Niners’ advantage, as it turned out. When Eddie DeBartolo cleaned house after the ’78 season, he hired Bill Walsh as coach and architect—and the lack of a number one pick forced Walsh to dig deep to find his quarterback. He got Joe Montana at the end of the third round. In the next two decades, the 49ers won five Super Bowls. It left much for the new Niners to live up to.
That’s part of the reason why Lynch woke up at 3:30 a.m. on draft morning. His mentor and friend John Elway had told Lynch to pace himself—that nothing of importance happens on draft morning or afternoon. Lynch told his scouts to come in at 1 p.m. PT, with the draft scheduled to begin at 5:10 p.m. But Lynch was a kid on Christmas dying to open the new Xbox under the tree. He got up and watched tape of some second-round prospects in his hotel room two miles from his office next to Levi’s Stadium. He did a workout, then jogged to his office. While he ran, he sought a break.
Before Lynch went to bed the previous night, Elway called to alert him that he’d heard reliably that the Browns really might take Trubisky, not Garrett. Someone else told Lynch on Wednesday night that Cleveland coaches would be stunned if the pick was anyone but Garrett. Whom to believe?
But Thursday morning, Lynch got another call. And now he thought strongly that the Cleveland the pick would be Garrett. And so he ran the flat San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail on a warm morning, passing Silicon Valley joggers and bicyclists in anonymity. “To be honest,” he said, taking a slow pace, “we’ve been anticipating they’d take Myles the entire time. It wasn’t until the last couple days, really yesterday, that I got a heads up they really may be going Trubisky. Then it kept mounting. I think in retrospect they tried with Myles for a while to get someone to move up to their pick, and it didn’t work. So they said, 24 to 48 hours out, let’s put out the word on Trubisky. Probably not a bad play on their part.”
This was a morning to strategize about the 34th pick in the draft—San Francisco’s second-round choice. In Shanahan’s first-floor office, with the practice fields outside his window (at one point, in an early phase of the off-season strength and conditioning program, a group of players including quarterbacks Brian Hoyer and Matt Barkley stretched out on the field), he and Lynch studied candidates; Marathe and vice president of player personnel Adam Peters filtered in and out, in between projects and calls. (One of Peters’ projects, a late-rising prospect, would get intense by Saturday’s third day of the draft.)
Wisconsin pass-rusher T.J. Watt was of particular interest, though there was a good chance he’d be gone by the end of round one.
Lynch said: ”Let's throw up T.J. real quick and start watching him. Let's see how passionate we get. I know what I think. Contagious competitiveness. Football passion.”
They watched Watt slice and dice through offensive lines. Lynch loved him. It was clear he could be a candidate through a trade late in round one, or at 34.
Paraag Marathe, currently the vice president of football operations, has worked for the 49ers for 17 seasons.
Photo: Getty Images
Paraag Marathe, currently the vice president of football operations, has worked for the 49ers for 17 seasons.
But the talk kept coming back to Foster, if indeed he would be the pick at number three. Marathe was talking theoretically to his agent about some contract concessions to address Foster’s off-field concerns, and the agent was amenable. The 49ers were going to be comfortable picking Foster third overall if they couldn’t move, even though they knew they’d be subject to criticism for taking him too early if it happened.
At one point discussion turned to the rest of the first round. Peters heard reliably that Kansas City, picking 27th, was moving way up to Tennessee at five. Presumably for a quarterback. “I hear it’s for a one, two, four and next year’s one,” Shanahan said. “They offered that to Tennessee.”
Said Shanahan: “The only other guy that I can think of that they would really need would be Leonard Fournette. Would that be possibly worth that?”
“Don’t think so,” Lynch said. “That doesn't fit Andy [Reid]'s style, I don't think, a big back.”
The video of Watt, up on the big screen in Shanahan’s office, was paused now. “Look, if we can get one good player today, whoever it is and wherever it is in the first round, we've gained a third-round pick, worst-case scenario, and a third for next year, worst-case scenario. And now we are sitting in there later tonight, and I think we have a bunch of offers for that 34th pick and hopefully one of those offers is a later second-round pick, another third-round pick or whatever the hell it is … and now we've got enough that we can move back up in the second if there is a guy we absolutely want. There's plenty of guys in the third and fourth. I want to have four guys that can really help us early.”
Marathe asked: “What if Foster falls, free falls, and he's sitting there at 25?”
“To me, that's easy,” said Shanahan. “Get him.”
“He's not getting past Cincy [with the ninth pick in the first round], though,” Lynch said.
“I think he is getting past Cincy,” Shanahan said. “I don't think he's getting past [Ravens GM] Ozzie [Newsome at 16].”
Really interesting part of the pre-draft hours that would surprise most people: These guys have the second pick in the draft. They’re in the belly of the beast. And they truly don’t know what’s going to happen.
• PETER KING'S WEEKLY HOT READ: Want more insider information from Peter King? Check out The MMQB Hot Read.
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Lynch signs the trade agreement that sends the No. 2 pick to the Chicago Bears.
Photo: Peter King/The MMQB
Lynch signs the trade agreement that sends the No. 2 pick to the Chicago Bears.
At 4:57 p.m. Pacific Time, Lynch and his coach walked back into the draft room. There were 31 people in the place. Across the main side of the table: Marathe, CEO Jed York, Shanahan, Lynch, Peters, senior personnel executive and former Lions GM Martin Mayhew (Lynch’s sounding board) and co-chair John York. Scouts and medical personnel ringed the table; Jed York’s son Jaxon, 4, came in and out. In the back were a collection of minority owners and a few fans who paid handsomely to the team’s foundation ($30,000 in one case) to silently observe the proceedings. “A couple ground rules,” said Lynch. “My first time doing it. But let’s have a business atmosphere in here. If you have a phone in here, and you’re on it, it’s got to be for work purpose. This is a serious day for our organization … We’re gonna get after this thing. But let’s have some fun.”
The draft began. Garrett to the Browns. The trade with the Bears went through. No drama in the draft room. The TV seemed happier. “The 49ers picked up all that draft capital—phenomenal!” Mike Mayock said on NFL Network. Then the waiting, and Marathe made a round of phone calls between four and 14. Six teams said no. No trade-down.
5:21 PT. Lynch: “TRUBISKY!”
Marathe: “I TOLD YOU!”
That was a shock. Now the room went from possibly/probably reaching for Foster to picking Thomas. At 5:29, after waiting for an offer that never came, Lynch picked up the landline on the table in front of him and dialed Thomas’s cell. Bizarrely, as Jenny Vrentas of the The MMQB reported, Lynch and Thomas had taken a management class together when Lynch returned to Stanford to get his degree in 2014. Thomas was a freshman. So Lynch said when the phone was answered, “Solomon! It’s me! … John Lynch! You want to be a 49er?”
The Bears Did Nothing Wrong
When new Chicago quarterback Mitchell Trubisky was introduced to the crowd at the Celtics-Bulls game Friday night in Chicago, fans booed. It was probably due to the impression from fans that the Bears overpaid to move up from the third pick in the draft to the second to get Trubisky in a trade with San Francisco. I disagree with the anger over the deal.
The last time a team traded up from three to two in the first round to get a quarterback happened in 1998, when San Diego moved up one spot and ended up drafting Washington State quarterback Ryan Leaf. Let’s compare the compensation paid for two quarterbacks picked in the same spot 19 years apart.
• What the Bears paid to move from three to two for Trubisky: third- and fourth-round picks this year, and a 2018 fourth-round pick.
• What the Chargers paid to move from three to two for Leaf: a second-round pick in 1998, a first-round pick in 1999, returner/receiver Eric Metcalf and linebacker Patrick Sapp.
NFL teams use a device during the draft (referenced above in my lead on the Niners) called the draft-trade value chart, which assigns points to every pick in the draft. So when teams start to talk trade, they can use some sort of universal trade language to calculate the fairness of the compensation. Let’s calculate how much San Diego GM Bobby Beathard paid to move up to get Leaf, and how much Bears GM Ryan Pace paid to move up for Trubisky, using an estimate of the 16th pick in the fourth round to calculate the value of the 2018 pick for this year’s calculus.
• Points Beathard paid to get in position to draft Leaf: 1,980.
• Points Pace paid to get in position to draft Trubisky: 580.
I know how this looked Thursday night: The Bears waaaay overpaid for Trubisky, when they could have just sat at three and drafted him. That’s possible, and in fact it’s more likely than not.
But as someone who was with San Francisco GM John Lynch for much of the day, and in a planning meeting with cap guy Paraag Marathe and coach Kyle Shanahan 25 minutes before the draft began, and in the 49ers’ draft room that evening, I can tell you that is a false assumption. Ask me my gut feeling, and it is that yes, the Bears would have gotten Trubisky at three without moving. But it was not at all certain. What if the scenario happened that, as of Thursday, was legitimately possible—what if the Browns packed up enough picks to make the Niners move from two to 12? The 49ers had been in touch with Cleveland before the draft, and were anticipating they could get a call from the Browns when they were on the clock at two with Trubisky available. There was also a mystery team that I could not identify that wanted to move to two and wouldn’t say which player the team was targeting.
Understand this also: The Niners were not stuck on drafting Solomon Thomas had they stayed at two. It certainly was most likely, but they would have been fine with moving back for a ransom, or moving back as far as eight and taking Reuben Foster for less of a ransom.
So let’s say you’re Pace, and you’ve determined that you really want Trubisky. You call the 49ers and trying to work out fair compensation if the Browns do not pick him at one. You think Trubisky’s going to be the long-term Bears quarterback, starting in 2018 or later. By late Thursday afternoon, you think there’s probably an 80 percent chance you’re going to get Trubisky at three. Are you willing to take the chance of staying put? Or, for the cost of the 67th and 111th picks this year and a third-rounder next year, are you willing to guarantee you’ll get Trubisky if Cleveland passes on him?
The market for quarterbacks is always weird. In 2004 the Giants had the fourth overall pick and dealt it to San Diego for the first overall pick, so New York could snare Eli Manning. The Giants gave up future first-, third- and fifth-round picks to make the swap. That’s a lot. But is it really? Manning has helped deliver two Super Bowl titles to the Giants in 13 seasons, and he’s been an ironman. This year’s market was filled with flawed passers who were lusted after nonetheless. Really, the NFL has two drafts—a regular draft, and a draft for quarterbacks. Three teams moved up a total of 31 draft slots this year to get quarterbacks in the first round. The Bears, Chiefs and Texans paid a total of two 2018 first-round picks and a third- in ’18, plus two thirds and a fourth this year to move up for Trubisky, Pat Mahomes and Deshaun Watson, respectively.
For quarterbacks, NFL history says you pay Four Seasons prices. That’s why I can’t fault Pace for what he did. He wasn’t willing to risk losing the guy he loved.
