Kurtenbach: The secret sauce the 49ers want when drafting a wide receiver - Woodland Daily Democrat

It’s tough for the 49ers to draft a wide receiver out of college. I know because 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan has said it time and time again.

But now that San Francisco has the No. 13 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft — a spot that has them poised to select one of the top wide receivers in a year supposedly full of great pass catchers — Shanahan, alongside general manager John Lynch and the Niners’ scouting staff, are going to have to work through those problems.

Shanahan’s biggest pet peeve in evaluating college receivers? The lack of man-to-man coverage at the collegiate level.

“There’s a lot of zone, it’s a lot more spaced out with the hashes, so you don’t get to see a lot of one-on-ones and how they beat man coverage,” Shanahan said at the NFL Draft Combine, echoing the statements he’ll make roughly once a quarter.

In the NFL, if you can’t beat man-to-man coverage as a wide receiver, you cannot play. It really is as simple as that. Yes, there’s plenty of zone in the pros, too — but even the most zone-dominant teams, like the 49ers, frequently mix in man-to-man, particularly on key downs. Receivers can’t take off those plays.

But unless you have game tape of a prospect playing Ohio State (and some LSU), you rarely get to see a collegiate receiver take on a cornerback one v. one.

Imagine having to evaluate an NFL receiver’s quality after they played the Raiders, a team that plays the collegiate Cover-4 as much as anyone in the NFL (and gives up a copious amount of points in the process). It’s effectively a prevent defense all game. Is the receiver good or is the defense just bad?

Or think about it as if you had to figure out if a receiver was good, but they were going up against guys who, like Richard Sherman, give seven, nine, sometimes even more than 10 yards of space to a receiver at the line of scrimmage. But then, unlike Sherman, the cornerback didn’t have the smarts and instincts to make that gap a trap.

It’s tough enough determining if a collegiate guy can take his game to the next level — it’s a whole other thing to determine if they can effectively play a different game.

“A lot of it is just spread out zones, so you can see guys run with the ball and their movements, but you don’t always get to see a developed receiver,” Shanahan said. “It takes time to develop a guy, so you never know how long that is going to take. It depends on the guy, it depends on the skillset… It’s always a guess.”

Shanahan has, in the past, looked towards kick and punt returns to see how a collegiate receiver would operate in open space. That’s worked with players like Deebo Samuel and Trent Taylor. But then there’s Dante Pettis.

And the 49ers don’t have much time for development if they were to take a receiver with pick No. 13, either.

Three receivers have separated themselves as the cream of the crop in this draft class. Alabama’s Jerry Jeudy is the consensus No. 1 overall player at his position, but he’s closely followed by his Crimson Tide teammate Henry Ruggs and Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb. Any of the three could be first receiver selected in the draft, and there’s a chance all three are off the board by the time the Niners select at No. 13.

Making the calculus more challenging for the Niners is that there’s a fascinating variance between the three receivers. Jeudy is the most well-rounded and polished; Ruggs is far and away the most athletic, boasting 4.27 40-yard dash speed;  and Lamb has the highest upside, though likely the lowest floor, too.

Are any of these players at No. 13 the option, or will the Niners feel more comfortable rolling the dice later on in the draft?

The Niners need to add an impact receiver this offseason after losing Emmanuel Sanders, and given the Niners’ cap crunch, there might not be an opportunity via late-stage free agency or a trade.

Yes, it appears a portion of the Niners’ success next year will ride on Shanahan, Lynch, and company being able to correctly answer one of the toughest questions in football.

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Kurtenbach: The secret sauce the 49ers want when drafting a wide receiver - Woodland Daily Democrat
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