Like many 5-year-olds with their food, the San Francisco 49ers are picky when it comes to drafting offensive tackles.
They demand that prospects at the position possess certain must-have traits. And those who don’t meet their precise specifications? Yuck.
“We are very selective (with) those guys,” director of player personnel Tariq Ahmad said. “But it is something that we would love to take throughout the draft, if the right person was available.”
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For the 49ers, the right person hasn’t been available for a long, long time.
Consider that Ahmad discussed the 49ers’ selectivity last year after they didn’t use any of their eight picks on an offensive tackle. Sound familiar? It should. The 49ers didn’t draft an offensive tackle in 2023. Or 2022. And they continued their streak Saturday when the NFL draft ended and none of their 11 selections included a player at the position that’s become a massive need due to their inattention.
The 49ers haven’t drafted an offensive tackle since they grabbed Jaylon Moore in the fifth round in 2021. But Moore, who has served as their primary backup tackle, signed with the Chiefs in March, and that’s created the biggest post-draft question on the roster: Who will step in if All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams, 36, misses multiple games with an injury for the 10th straight season?
The problematic situation isn’t Kyle Shanahan’s favorite topic. He rarely bats away reporters’ questions, but he did just that when asked Saturday about the 49ers’ backup-tackle plan.
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“We don’t tell you all our plans,” Shanahan said. “So we’ll see.”
It’s possible Shanahan was curt because the 49ers’ draft plan was foiled and their post-draft plan, along with their current options, are unappealing. Their top candidates to back up Williams and right tackle Colton McKivitz are Spencer Burford, a backup guard who hasn’t played tackle since he was at Texas-San Antonio in 2021, and Austen Pleasants, 27, who was unemployed and had played 10 career snaps when the 49ers signed him in December.
Their depth chart is why they planned to draft an offensive tackle. The 49ers reportedly hosted five offensive tackles on pre-draft visits, but each of those players was selected within the first 54 picks.
Did they have an offensive tackle in mind later in the draft? It was perhaps revealing what general manager John Lynch said Friday when he noted the draft is unpredictable, causing teams to pivot from their plan, but all went according to script with the 49ers’ first three picks: defensive end Mykel Williams (No. 11), defensive tackle Alfred Collins (No. 43) and linebacker Nick Martin (No. 75). Lynch indicated their next pick, third-round cornerback Upton Stout (No. 100), broke the streak.
“I would tell you that with Mykel, Alfred and Nick, those were the guys we wanted,” Lynch said. “Those are the slots we wanted. And so that’s pretty cool when it works out that way. And Upton — we knew we wanted a nickel, and there were a number of guys in play.”
Before the 49ers settled on Stout, the Raiders made back-to-back picks and took an offensive tackle and another player at a position of need for the 49ers: Texas Tech guard Caleb Rogers (No. 98), who reportedly visited the 49ers before the draft, and William & Mary offensive tackle Charles Grant.
“There were a number of times that we were interested in adding (an offensive lineman) and it just didn’t come our way,” Lynch said. “And you’ve got to stay true to where you have guys graded. Not take guys just to take them, but to take guys that you’re interested in at that point. And it just never really aligned.”
The 49ers eventually acknowledged their need at guard by selecting Iowa’s Connor Colby in the seventh round. Colby will join a group that includes Ben Bartch and Matt Hennessy to fill the vacancy created when Aaron Banks signed with the Packers in March.
So why didn’t the 49ers also take a later-round flier on an offensive tackle? Ahmad addressed that last year when he noted it’s difficult to find college prospects with the height, weight, length and athleticism to play the position in the NFL. As a result, the top offensive linemen are drafted early and the position becomes an afterthought for many teams.
“There’s not a lot of people that have the skill set to play tackle, so that reduces the pool,” Ahmad said. “And, also, they typically go pretty early.”
That’s what happened last week. Five offensive linemen were among the first 32 picks before just eight were among the next 158 selections. The dynamic is why there aren’t many surprises among the NFL’s elite at the position: Ten of the 12 offensive tackles who have earned first or second-team All-Pro honors since 2020 were first-round picks, and eight were top-13 selections.
As for the 49ers, they might be even more selective than most teams when evaluating offensive tackles given the premium they place on movement skills in their zone-blocking schemes. But their selectivity has left them in their current predicament.
Beyond their need for a capable backup this season, they don’t have an obvious candidate to eventually inherit a starting role. Williams will turn 37 in July and McKivitz is in the final year of his contract.
When asked about their options for 2025, Shanahan mentioned Burford and Pleasants. And he noted they could also sign a veteran in the coming weeks, or wait to sort through the scrap heap in late August.
“There are options, usually, after cuts at the end of training camp,” Shanahan said.
The 49ers wanted to keep Moore, but they were shocked when he landed a two-year, $30 million contract with Kansas City after making 12 starts in his first four seasons. Moore’s lucrative deal speaks to the NFL’s scarcity at the position. And it perhaps should be a lesson to the 49ers about the benefit of occasionally rolling the dice with a later-round pick on an offensive tackle, as they did with Moore in 2021.
Instead, the 49ers, like a kid refusing carrots, have been picky, leaving them in an unappetizing position.
