The 49ers improved on paper during this year’s NFL draft. That’s a positive every team would love to take away from each rookie selection process. Their draft was successful enough to slide them up a couple spots in the USA TODAY power rankings to No. 18, but now they have to stay healthy and prove their roster has gotten better.
San Francisco entered the draft at No. 20 in these same power rankings. The selections of defensive end Nick Bosa and wide receiver Deebo Samuel alone might’ve been enough to bump the 49ers up. However, both of those players experienced injury issues in college, which makes the analysis of their place in the rankings all the more poignant:
If coach Kyle Shanahan finally gets to play with a full deck, this club should be really fun to watch — on both sides of the ball.
This is an all-too-familiar theme for the 49ers during the Shanahan-John Lynch tenure. Injuries have defined the last two, disappointing years in Santa Clara.
That’s part of the reason it’s so difficult to evaluate the 49ers’ roster. They were without their starting quarterback for 13 games, then seemingly every other position group had significant injuries to deal with throughout the season. Perhaps a healthy iteration of the roster last season wins eight or nine games instead of four and we’re talking about a potential playoff team in San Francisco.
Unfortunately for the 49ers that isn’t a realistic expectation yet. They’ve done well to climb to the middle of the pack. Now getting over the injury hurdle to take a place among the NFL’s playoff teams will be the toughest test they face all year.
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