Over the last three days, one word kept coming up on the blockbuster deal struck by the Niners and Dolphins, through all the digging I did, and that word is .
Sitting at 12 in the draft, San Francisco lacked it. At three, the Niners have it.
To understand the rest, you have to look not just at the two teams involved in this big-time transaction, but the state of quarterbacking across the NFL. The Niners know, like everyone else knows, the Jaguars are taking Trevor Lawrence first overall. They think, like everyone else thinks, the Jets are taking one, probably Zach Wilson, with the second pick. There’s also plenty of reason to believe Atlanta is taking one fourth overall.
Mock Draft 1.0: QBs Go 1-2-3-4
Between there and where the Niners were, just outside the Top 10, you had the Eagles, Lions, Panthers and Broncos in play to take one, and beyond that the Patriots, Washington Football Team and Bears lurking as teams that could trade up.
Now, let’s say, for argument’s sake, that Deshaun Watson isn’t traded before the season starts, and things between the Seahawks and Russell Wilson stabilize. Lawrence goes first overall. Wilson goes second overall. That would put the Jaguars and Jets in the clubhouse, with up to eight teams still swinging to find their guy, four of whom were picking ahead of the Niners, with three first-round quarterbacks (Trey Lance, Justin Fields, Mac Jones) left.
It’s right there for everyone to see. The math didn’t work for the Niners.
But it does now.
By dealing away three first-round picks (12th overall this year, plus their picks in 2022 and '23) and a third-rounder in 2022, the Niners seized a measure of control over a chaotic quarterbacking landscape, jumping from fifth to first in line behind the Jaguars and Jets with a month left until the draft. They won’t get Lawrence, and they probably won’t get Wilson, but they will get their pick of the rest.
Of course, before seizing that control, the Niners had to figure out that they wanted control. And the process of deciding that was underway well before anyone had an idea Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch were spoiling for a splash move up the board. Which we’ll explain.
