The San Francisco 49ers drafted a running back earlier than the masses expected them to. Write in whatever year you’d like under this regime, and that sentence rings true.
Kaelon Black didn’t start at Indiana. He wasn’t among the 319 players invited to the NFL Combine. The sixth-year senior had to show his route-running chops a week after playing in the national championship at the Senior Bowl, after only being targeted a few times with the Hoosiers this past season.
So it’s not surprising to see Black labeled as a reach. How many analysts scouted somebody who didn’t start or make the combine?
Appearing on The Rich Eisen Show, Kyle Shanahan explained how they felt about Black and why they took him in the third round, saying, “We thought he was the–trying to think of the way to word this– but we had him as the second-rated back on the board. That’s just our evaluation of him. Right or wrong, that’s our evaluation, and then, you’ve got to decide where you think he’s going to go. And I think that’s the hardest thing with this league.”
Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price were selected in the first round. Black was the third running back drafted. There were only two drafted in the fourth round and three more in the fifth. An additional two in the sixth and four more in the seventh, and that’s it for the running back class.
Shanahan continued talking about where he thought Black would land:
“You got a guy who’s not invited to the Combine, so what does that mean? Man, maybe it means he’s going in the sixth round. But then you evaluate him, you’re like, ‘Man, I think this is a third-round running back.’ But then you start to watch the whole draft, and you start to watch all the backs, and evaluate all the backs together, and this wasn’t as deep of a draft as years past for running backs. And when you look at it all, and you take a census of scouts, of coaches–it’s a whole process- but you start to get to April, and the majority of our place is ranking him up there.”
The fourth round was allegedly a sweet spot for running backs. Arkansas’s Mike Washington was popular among the draft community for his ability to rip off the big play. He was one of the worst pass-protecting backs I can remember watching. If you can’t block, you can’t play.
I felt like Jonah Coleman and Emmett Johnson were good fits. Nicholas Singleton would’ve been a dart throw. Black has the speed edge on the first two and has an argument for being superior in pass protection than any other back in this class. Even in hindsight, Johnson would’ve been fun in Shanahan’s offense.
Shanahan continued, “Well, by the time that draft came, we feel everyone’s looking at this guy as a fourth-round pick. And so, if everyone’s looking at him as a fourth-round pick, if we want him, I’ll take him at 90 in the third. We’ll be all right, everyone hating on us and judging that, as long as that’s what we feel like.”
Shanahan acknowledged that some of this stems from previous experiences in which he felt the team waited too long to draft a player, and the player was selected before the Niners were on the clock. He said, “You’re like, ‘Man, why’d we try to get cute? It was close enough.”
The 49ers did not want to feel that way with Black, which is a sign they were high on their third-rounder.
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