The San Francisco 49ers could be a prime candidate to trade back, or even drop out of, round one of the 2025 NFL Draft on Thursday — and it may suit their strengths.

That was the slightly tongue-in-cheek response from NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah when asked to assess the 49ers recent draft success, a lot of which came from players selected outside of the opening round.

“It’s an interesting case,” Jeremiah agreed. “They have done as well as anybody outside the first round of finding, not just starters, but All-Pro, impact-calibre players. To me, it seems like a pretty simple formula where you want more shots at it than less given their track record and their history.

“I haven’t pulled the exact numbers, but they have a boatload of picks in next year’s draft because of the guys that they lost [in free agency this year] — when you add up the comp picks, they’re going to have a lot of shots at it next year. They’re armed with a good number of picks this year, but they’re sitting there at #11 and, if anybody wants to call and come up, I would think they would be more than willing to slide back and get more picks and take more shots at it.”

With players allowed to leave in free agency, and the likes of Deebo Samuel traded away over the early part of the offseason, the 49ers have holes in a lot of areas, no more than in the trenches, but have had little option in their dealings as they look to ensure the money is there to fund a first contract extension for one of those later round finds, former Mr Irrelevant Brock Purdy.

“I’m sure they’ll end up getting the Brock Purdy thing done before too long, and then it’s going to come down to the importance of them hitting on their draft picks, just as the [Los Angeles] Rams have done inside their own division, where they’ve been stellar and really kind of flipped their roster from old to young really, really fast.

“The [49ers] are going to need these young guys to get on the field and play — but there’s two sides of it. There’s the evaluating and projecting talent, which you can say has been a little bit up-and-down with them, but the other side of it is

developing them once they get there, and I think they’re outstanding at doing that.”