The 49ers are without a first-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, but they should still feel good about how that draft capital was spent.
Trading three first-round picks to the Miami Dolphins in order to move up and select quarterback Trey Lance with the No. 3 pick in the 2021 draft, San Francisco will not select in the first round this year.
A likely Jimmy Garoppolo trade this offseason will officially begin Lance's tenure as the starting quarterback. He'll be playing in his first full season at the same time as some of the rookie quarterbacks from the upcoming draft class.
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SIGN UP HERE NFL Network's draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah believes that if Lance was coming out of college this spring instead of last, he would be the first overall pick in 2022.
“In my opinion, yes," Jeremiah said Friday on a conference call with reporters. "He’s more talented than any quarterback in this draft class coming out, and I don’t even think it’s particularly close. If he had a chance to go back to school and continue to grow and play and develop, yeah, I think he would have been the first pick in this draft.”
“You could go through and I could find probably 10 guys that would have an opportunity to be the first pick in this year’s draft,” Jeremiah said. “This year’s draft has got a lot of depth and there’s a lot as you go outside of the top 10 that you love as you go through it. But in terms of being top-heavy, I think last year’s draft, man, again, you could come up with probably 10 names that would have a chance to be the first pick.”
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This year's quarterback class is believed to be much weaker than Lance's draft class in 2021 and Jeremiah believes the 21-year-old would be the top choice over quarterbacks such as North Carolina's Sam Howell, Liberty's Malik Willis or Cincinnati's Desmond Ridder.
Whenever Lance does take over as the 49ers' full-time starter, it will be interesting to see how his development compares to both the 2021 and 2022 quarterback draft classes.
