So six picks. Busy day, really good day, and open it up to questions.
I guess the one thing you look at this, you guys did did not take an offensive linement. So what does that tell us?
That wasn't one there that we would love to take ano alignment, but it just drop didn't work out that way.
Yeah.
I think even in the first round in a year that was very limited, especially at the tackle position, a lot of them went early. There was a huge run or early that affected. It starts at the top and then it's a trickle down or up or whatever you call it effect, and that happened, and so they're just we weren't going to take one just to take one, you know.
And you said on Monday that you were open to trading Mike last year would suggest that you were fine with whatever you had last year as a starter. You probably colden m kibbitz. So is this a vote of confidence for Colton?
The Kibbits as well, Very much much so. I you know, we believe in Colton.
Uh you know, I'll let Kyle talk a little bit about Colton as a player, but uh, you know, Colton, the gold helmet is a hard standard up there. We give it to very few people. Colton was one of those when he came out of West Virginia. You know, I think when he got here we didn't we didn't necessarily see that all the time because he was shy.
He kind of took him a little while.
But I think over time, as his confidence grew, you started to see all those traits and qualities, the spirit as we.
Call it, really start to show.
And then Colton sninaky talented as well, and we like him a lot as a player.
Kyle, you go ahead and talk about him.
Oh yeah, I mean, just get an old linement ready to start in this league is really tough, especially how different playing in the league is in college and the lack of you know, preparation we get with how ots are this year, how much shorter training camp is.
But you can win with Colton. He's been here for a while.
When he has played, we have one games with him. Did help the job last year helping us or two years ago getting into the playoffs when you had to start unexpectedly versus the Rams and seventeen I think, but I mean I look at Colton very similar to how Jake was last year. I mean, we felt very good about Jake, but you never know until they get out there a ton and you look in the draft to
add depth, and you always want to. If there's someone there that falls in that you think can beat out your starter, that's really it's.
A good pick. But it's not easy to find a guy I pick ninety nine or.
Later who can beat out Colton mckivitz, just like you don't just find anyone for Jake Brendle last year. So when you have guys who played and you practice with a lot, and you have an idea about them, I get how not everyone else knows about him as much because they haven't seen him. But I mean, we were going to that draft hoping to find depth and hoping
to find some competition. But to go into that draft and to think you're going to find someone to start over someone like Coldner as good as Colton can be and has been as would be very unusual.
The other thing I'd add Matt at a you know, big shout out to RJ.
Gillen and his staff.
You go get a guy like Matt Pryor who started games and played at a high level last year wasn't as good. Whatever happened in Indy. I think their O line struggled as a whole. They moved him over to the left side, he didn't play as well. But we think Matt Pryor is a guy who's shown that he can play, So that gives you, you know, at least whoever we draft better be able to beat him out. And we didn't see that happening.
And that's the hardest thing too, when you in order not just to play, you talk about Colton because you know, but Matt Pryor we brought him free agency, who we liked two years ago too. And then you got Jalen Moore, who's been our swing tackle for a couple of years.
Is played in games.
So it's not only finding someone who can have a chance to compete with the starter, which we feel we brought in some vets to do that. But if they can't compete with a starter, they have to beat out those vets to make the team. And when you look at a draft and you look at O lineman and you're sitting there in your first picks at ninety nine, all the way down, we're not just talking about who can come start at a position. We're talking about who do we think can make the team, and you compare
that to every single position. We believe the kicker for sure could. That's probably why I was the pick there you see the safety. But you know, we'd love to get depth at every position, and we can at every position, but we also got a good team that does have some depth. And our first goal is that we hope that these draft picks.
Can make our team, which is easy to do.
And you guys drafted with.
Defense been So what do you see out of him and how to.
See for him? Yeah, bial's a really really gifted athlete.
You know, I want to we we you rely a lot on relationships in this thing, and Kirby Smart's been good to us. He's got a lot of players. You know, Kirby was a safety and we kind of bonded over that. But uh, you know, Kirby said, someone's going to get a really gifted and talented player if they just let this guy hunt qbs and set edges and and when he said that, that's exactly what we do.
Uh.
You know, he's not really good at going back and all that stuff. He could do it, but what Kirby said there really resonated our eyes saw the same thing. Ran a four four seven as in, so he had speed. He's you know, he's in the six three you know range, but he's got thirty four and five inch, so he's got that length you look for.
That's right.
Uh, our analytics see if anyone can guess, we have a you know, I tell our analytics guys all the time. Plant Sky and his crew go go watch the coaches get in there and let's come up with measurables that are what we coach. And GTFO is something Chris Caseric is always screaming, you guys know what it is. Yeah, okay, So he had the highest GTFO great in the in the draft, so we're really fired up about that.
It's hard to get an offensive linment from college transition and ready to start in the NFL.
Why is it harder for an offensive linment than a defensive linment.
Sometimes those guys.
Get ground running because just like receivers, just like running backs and d lineman rotating, you can put guys who just have a certain skill set, put them in that situation. In that situation, only an old lineman. Show me someone who rotates, You're out there seventy plays. That's also why the guy with the best highlight tape is not the guy that you go get if it's the highlight tape and the whole game. Yes, but an old linement is different. You got to be built to last. You don't have
to be flashy. You got to make sure that you can survive that game and not be the reason that we lost. And if you can have a guy who can dominate someone like Trem Williams and stuff, it's still only so much you can do there.
Or the d ns.
You know, these pass rushers, they might not be able to play their run, they might not be able to do something, but you can put them in a two minute situation and have them win a game for you. So that's why you you can win with d lineman by a group of them. O line, How good do those five play together? And one goes down and the next one comes in?
How's that a gusture five? And how they play together?
Paul?
I mean, how do you assess that?
Is it the first guy who's off the line scrimmage? You look at the ten yard split.
I mean that's what we look at coaches, but analytics I have no clue how they do that stuff.
You know, like it's within the first two yards is what we're measuring, and you know they've they've come up with a way to measure that, and Beal's right at the top of it. So it's something you know, we're always talking about getting length and explosion out of that stance, and Beal's a guy who kind of embodies that, you know, the other unique thing that you get from bal and I think it really helps on game day. You know,
we dress a lot of D lineman. He's a guy who can help you a lot in special teams as well because he can really run and he's really good in space, so kind of a unique ability when you get a D lineman who can do that.
It's an added bonus to McCaffrey's contract. Is that just gives us some room.
We were we were pressed right up there when when we were to sign our rookies. We could have done it, but we would have been right there, and we wanted to have some flexibility and made sense.
Christian is going to be here.
Simple conversion, and we did it, and we're thankful to Christian for agreeing to do it.
Good thing for him, good thing for us.
Signs don't count against the camp formula right after the draft.
Yeah, that's correct, give you, you.
Know, some some thoughts, some free agency considered.
We're working on undrafted free agency right now. We got a lot of numbers on our roster. You know, I had a healthy draft. Our numbers were pretty good. We'll see where it's at after this. You know, this is always kind of nerve wracking because we're down here and they're up there filling out that class. But we've got it pretty slotted and uh, you know, we'll see what. We're never gonna stop looking for players that can help.
And it's just a lot of that slots are filled and where they aren't, we'll go add to it if we need to.
Then he went to Michigan.
Just how consistent of a football player he is. You know, he's I believe he was a captain, you know, coach's son. Not that doesn't mean much, but he plays like what you want that to be like. He was just so consistent, special teams player, a good returner, did really everything they asked,
very good in his routes. There was not one thing that he struggled with when you can put him into a group and just whatever skill set is, I think he could fit in any position, and he seemed like one of the more reliable guys wide outs that we watched in all of college football. And you know, we want guys to be good over time, and I feel like he's a guy who's been as good of a football player as there is in college, and we got
to see how he adjusted this level. But if he can play at this level the way that he did in college, we're gonna have a really good football player.
I think, not the biggest package, but real tough, physical, gritty player with the ball in his hands. Made a lot of big plays in big moments. The returnability is a big thing. We had Rey Ray, and behind Rey Ray we didn't really have. You know, Pa has done it before, but we wanted another return But really he made it just just on those traits. He's He's a guy that the more we watched more we liked and did it at the right times too.
So Ronnie was a great addition.
Willison made you want to take a second tight end.
Really that we had him ranked really high. You know everybody always says this, but you know, we had him kind of into fifth round grade and so when he was still around, it made a lot of sense. He's got a lot of versatility to his game. He's a guy who kind of embodies what we like in terms of after the balls in his hands, he can do some special things. Play some tight end, play some full back. Uh.
A nice tool that to to move around. You know, made made a lot of big plays for Oklahoma former quarterback. Real smart, cerebral kid. You can put a lot on him. So when he was still there, it just made sense for us.
I kind of refer to Brown potentially being a succession player for Gibbson like was for Tart, and you've had other guys like that. Banks did that, Drake Jackson. I guess we'll be doing this year. When you get guys at this point, when you're bringing guys in that are kind of maybe doing that, aren't going to necessarily start right away. How can that year help them, you know, maybe set them up.
For that future kind of succession.
And I think it's really good when you have someone like Get there to watch, you know, someone who's done it for a while, who's done it, succeeded in this league when when his skill set was at the top of his game, and when as he's gotten older, you've seen nothing change, so like give the proas and everything. When you can sit and watch that, it really helps
you learn how to play. But you know, when you look at like Banks and stuff, a line is a little tougher because you're not gonna there's not many.
Other places to do it.
So you really sit there and you want them in case there's an injury, but you're kind of just hoping they can develop and learn the game and practice and stuff.
So for the next year. When you take a guy like.
A safety who you believe does have that capability, hopefully pushes the whole group this year.
So everyone's got to be on and take it to another level.
Because we do want to be better than we were last year. So we're never going to say like we just brought in a guy to make them the next guy once people leave. I'm also not trying to threaten people either, but we didn't bring in Banks to take Laken's job, but he could have if he was ready to. And I look at that at every single position. If
they're better, we're going to play the best guy. I think that's really hard to do when you have someone like Lake in that year, like someone like Gip but when you have a safety's there's still so much more value. You can have three safeties on the field at once. Safeties are always up. You need a guy to play special teams. You usually have four safeties up a game. Two are playing. Those other two are your special teams demons, but just in one injury, they got to know how
to play safety too. When you look at a guy like George Otom, I think he's one of the best special teams players in the league who also can help us at safety. And now we're bringing in another guy who I think and we all think can be a starting safety in this league as soon as that makes sense for the Niners. But in the meantime, we think you can be a difference maker and all the other parts too.
Guys kind of later in rounds like you were this weekend, are you kind of under the understanding that you know, yeah, they may not start like you were saying, they're just going to try to make the team. But do you look for different things in those guys that might be developable over that for lack of put or work over that course of a year to maybe eventually.
Become that Yeah, you do, and I mean it goes either way.
When you get the later round picks, sometimes you got you want the guy with the most traits and stuff, just to guy to develop. But that I've been in this league a long time, and it's hard to develop guys with the way it's structured. I mean, it's there's only so many practice squad spots, there's only so many people on a roster, and there's only so many people up on game day. And that's what's tough when you take some real talent to guys early, because those guys
aren't ready to play. And sometimes I've been in places where regardless you have to play him right away because of their draft status, and then they come out and they look really bad and they're not. You want to stash them away a little bit so they can practice and develop. Unfortunately, in this league just we're not You don't have one hundred guys on the team like you
might in college. There are certain rules to that and stuff, so you got to weigh all that in the like, man, I would love to work with this guy, he's got it in him, but he looks so far away. How are we going to be able to stash him? Can you keep him on practice squad. No, he's got to be he's got to be your third tight end. All right, well, we use our third tight end, and so that's gonna be it's gonna be a big problem in week two
if someone's hurt. And so you look into all that stuff, and that's why.
There isn't any absolute answer.
Sometimes we will go for the most upside and guy to develop, and sometimes you want just the best football player you can count on.
And but the higher you go, you hope if fits all.
He's been watching Fred Warner for a couple of years. He was because he's a former safety and he was looking for someone that kind of went that route. And Warner told us he came here as a positionless player. Probably not hear to compare him to a Pro Bowl guy, but do you see some of those traits in him?
I think his linebacker coach did.
Johnny Holland was a huge D Winners fan, you know, and we trust Johnny's eye a lot. Our scouts like the Winners a lot, and you know, we had a we had a really nice discussion. We ended up with Jalen Graham. The reason why we drafted Jalen Graham when we already had a linebacker was because we were kind of torn, all right, J D Winners Jalen Graham. Ultimately D Winners went out and so when he's still there at the end, you go get Jalen Graham. We liked him both. D kind of fits who we are. A
player that drew some comparisons. Comparisons are dangerous because you got to go do it, but similar traits to Drake Greenlaw, you know, similar suddenness.
To his game. Uh, you know, I had the advantage.
TCU was a heavily scouted school by me selfishly because my daughter Lily goes to school there, so got to be there on three different occasions this year. And I heard plenty of anyone who who I would talk to would talk about D Winners as being just a real leader on that team, another captain, but the unequivocal leader for that defense and the voice of that defense and very much of that team.
So that carried weight as well.
Ultimately, we felt like he was just a guy we needed to to bring in and we're really excited to take him.
The plan at number four quarterback, which could be number three quarterback for a big chunk of the off season, is that one of the positions they're working on upstairs right now.
Yeah, they're looking to fill out everything with the free agents. We'd love to get a fourth guy here. We'll see which one it is, but it's you know, we'll be all right though in the off season, you know, we get to training camp. Hopefully we'll get brought back soon. But regardless, we'd love a fourth guy here. You never know how much we end up doing in the Ota sessions. But it's been good having two guys out there just throwing.
They've been on their own. We'll start with everybody tomorrow where we actually can go out on the field with them as coaches. But hopefully when it's said and done, we'll have a fourth guy.
It's it's completely clear. I know you're practicing. You've been out there throwing doing everything.
Yeah, yeah, do you have an agreement with an undrafted quarterback?
When we came down where we left the next couple of hours, all right, all, thank you,