Did 49ers pick Stribling too early in NFL draft?
Chris Simms and Connor Rogers talk about the 49ers drafting De'Zhaun Stribling 33rd overall, explaining why "the NFL really valued this guy" and previewing a "sneaky camp battle" between Stribling and Ricky Pearsall.
Video Transcript
The first battle.
Yeah.
Because I was thinking young player verse established old player.
The 49ers wide receiver room is maybe young player, DeSean Stribling- Yeah size, speed- Right against young player that hasn't been able to stay healthy in Ricky Pearsall.
I, I, I, yeah.
You know, hey, listen, they paid Mike Evans.
They're, they're not- Yeah, he's gonna- gonna battle there.
Yeah.
No.
Right?
Christian Kirk's kind of his own thing.
Sure.
Okay?
A little bit more slot guy and do that.
But no, I look at it and go, wait, first off, the 49ers are a team that plays two back, one tight end, two receivers a lot.
Right.
So it's gonna be two guys on the field.
I wouldn't think at pick 33 that they want D- De- DeSean, DeSean St- Stribling not playing- Right and being one of those one or two guys.
To me, this is where, you know, Stribling was a part, and, and this is, again, maybe we're messaging of the draft, right?
Because this has caught so many people by surprise.
And I think you've heard enough now and know enough people, and I certainly know that, you know, the NFL really valued this guy way higher maybe than the public.
By far, way more than the consensus.
Way more.
He was going in the second round no matter what.
He was going in those next 10 picks.
Yeah, yeah.
Right?
I, I think in Shanahan, and just talking to him a little over the weekend, I think they wanted to trade down from 33.
But I think then they read the board, and they're like, "Uh-oh, he might not be here if we trade too far down.
We gotta be careful."
Right.
"Let's just take him now."
And it felt like they might have already gotten jumped a couple times, 'cause they kept moving out of the first round.
Yeah, in the, in the first round.
But you, when you move once, it's like maybe you wanted the assets.
Yeah.
I feel like the Niners were like, "We're just gonna get out because the players we hope made it here aren't here."
I, I, I, I can confirm that.
That's a, happened to a lot of teams.
I, I can confirm that.
Yeah, yeah.
You're 100%.
There was the, there was guys that they had their eye on.
"Oh, he got picked.
We tried to back Oh, we were gonna pick him.
He got picked.
We're gonna move back even farther."
Yeah.
So I think that was real.
But so I get into that, and again, yeah, with Ricky Pearsall, yeah, he's a first-year guy, but he's been injured.
He hasn't produced to that extent yet.
Mike Evans is gonna be playing X, so I go- Yeah okay, when they're in 21, it's gonna be- Man one of these two guys right here.
And I know they're gonna play a ton of three receiver sets, and they'll all get on the field here.
But hey, Shanahan's all about, "Hey, Kyle, yous check.
You go in motion.
Hey, fake it to McCaffrey.
Ooh, my Z receiver," like Deebo used to be, over the middle doing something like that, post, quick slant, whatever.
And I just think, yeah, this'll be a sneaky camp battle here.
And again, I know people are gonna look at this and go, "Oh, he talked to Shanahan."
And I, I, I have n- no, I've not talked about this at all, at all.
I'm just connecting dots, and I know how he plays, and I'm looking at it, and I think it's gonna be interesting to see with two high picks like this.
It's even more than I thought.
When you think of 11 personnel, there were some years there where McVay and O- and Kevin O'Connell were in, like, the 91, 92%.
They lived in it.
The Niners last year- Yeah were in 11 personnel 43% of the time.
They've been one of the- That's nothing.
I know.
They were in 21 almost 37% of the time.
Uh-huh.
Which to be a two back offense at that rate, that I, I didn't look, but that has to be amongst, if not the highest in the league.
They usually are.
Yeah.
They usually operate that way.
And then 12 personnel 11% of the time.
Yeah.
So that's what kind of led me to this.
They don't play with three receivers.
They don't do it a lot.
They don't.
Well, let me ask you this.
Yeah.
Does Kittle's injury- Maybe that changes things can, can we see them- Yeah morph a little more, maybe 11 personnel 55% of the time?
Yeah, I, I wouldn't be shocked- Yeah to see it go up, you know, a little bit here.
And, and, you know, Brock Purdy and the way he's been playing and everything there, I thi- certainly think he's more capable of carrying the, the workload maybe than- Right it was early in his career, where yeah, you needed run game and balance and doing all of that.
I know they'll all get on the field, but the base premise and the big plays from the 49ers usually come out of their 21.
And that's where I just go, "Hmm, that's gonna be interesting to see who gets on the field first between Stribling and Ricky Pearsall."
The thing I'll say about Stribling, too, and I, I thought they took him a little early- Yeah but who, I mean, who cares, right?
Yeah.
Like, is that I don't know the last time they had a size, speed receiver- Uh-huh like this.
I was trying to think of that.
I, I think that's valid.
They always have a similar kind of guy.
Aiyuk wasn't a size, speed guy.
Yeah.
Jauan Jennings was not speed.
Yeah.
This is a true, like, we expect him to challenge the field vertically.
I think so.
I think that's why he liked him.
That's interesting.
I think he looked at That's why I think, you know, he was one of those guys that I think a lot of the NFL looked at and goes, "No, I think he has a chance to be a real number one."
And Shanahan, you know, he's, he's got a nuanced eye about receiver, and he's an- Yep ex-receiver, and he's obs- you know, he's an ex-receiver as far as college football.
And so that's, that's where, yeah, I, I, I could see that.
And, you know, conversations through the year.
I al- I always had this thought of, like, hey, you probably like, like, a well-rounded receiving corps with, like, you know, guys where I don't know what he's gonna do, and you can't pin them to a role.
Sure.
And one day he said to me, he goes, "You know, no, no, I, I, I like when I have Julio Jones or Andre Johnson, and it, it forces a team into, oh, they have to play this way."
Right.
"And now I know they have to play this way- Right and I can devise this game plan off of it."
And I think that's what he's gonna try to replicate with, DeSean Stribling.
I feel like there was a couple years where that was in vogue, where it's like we have three wide receivers, and they're all the same.
Yeah.
And then all of a sudden, everything curled, curled back to, like, "No, I want an alpha receiver."
Yep.
"And then I want a number two that does this, and number three that-" They dictate a lot.
Yeah, it- They dictate a lot it did pivot back.
They, they handcuff defensive coordinators a little bit and take their creativity away at times when you have that type of guy there at receiver
