NFL draft updates: 49ers enter with first pick of Day 2. Will they keep it?
The San Francisco 49ers traded out of the first round of the NFL draft through two deals Thursday. While they wound up with the first pick of Friday’s second round, the 33rd overall selection, it’s unclear if they’ll keep it as well.
Fan site Niners Nation, citing NFL analyst Jordan Schultz, noted that the team is very amenable to potentially moving back once more in the draft.
Here’s how the landscape was looking as of 2 p.m. Pacific time, with the draft in Pittsburgh set to resume at 4 p.m. Pacific, covering rounds 2 and 3.
The 49ers entered the day scheduled to pick 33rd and 58th, during the second round, and 90th, in the third round.
What 49ers leaders said after draft Day 1
It might that San Francisco’s brass wasn’t that enamored with players who were available late in the first round.
Asked during a brief media session if the team planned to trade down from the No. 27 pick or had done so based on how the draft unfolded, 49ers general manager John Lynch indicated that it was the latter.
“There were a couple, a few players that we would have taken had they been there,” Lynch said. “That didn’t happen.”
Coach Kyle Shanahan echoed Lynch’s thoughts about the impetus for moving down from the 27th pick. “We had the guys we really wanted and we knew there was a good chance,” Shanahan said. “But when they weren’t there, we moved back to 30.”
After briefly holding the 30th pick, the 49ers made another trade on Thursday that brought them the 33rd pick. “The guys that we would’ve had to take at 30 are still there,” Shanahan said. “So I look at it as a huge success to move back to 33 when you would have still taken those guys at 30.”
Lynch said San Francisco began making trade inquiries roughly a week ago about moving back and that they remained open to potential further dealing.
Reasons to move back from No. 33
A 2025 season marked by seemingly never-ending injuries for the 49ers illustrated that the team can always use reinforcements.
One way to do this: trade early-round draft picks for more selections later in the draft. Teams can even pick up draft capital by moving just a few spaces back in an individual round. When a team fixates on a particular prospect, there’s no telling what they might give up to be in position to draft them.
This kind of thing tends to happen at the very top of the draft, with a famous example being when Mike Ditka traded several New Orleans Saints picks in 1999 so that the team could move up just seven spots in the first round to select running back Ricky Williams.
Williams had a serviceable career, though much of his success came after he left New Orleans. The trade is more or less a cautionary tale, up there with Williams using rapper Master P to negotiate a terrible rookie contract. But somehow, there are still seemingly teams every year willing to overpay to move up.
And there are some prospects remaining who might entice a team to pay the 49ers handsomely to grab No. 33. Some of the top undrafted names as of this writing are Oklahoma edge rusher R Mason Thomas, Washington wide receiver Denzel Boston and Tennessee cornerback Jermod McCoy.
A luxury of trading back to the first pick of Day 2 is that Lynch and company will have had almost 18 hours since the end of Day 1 to work the phones on potential trades. And if no trade materializes and they elect to keep the pick, there’s no risk of another team swooping in to take the 49ers’ selection
Why to hold onto the pick
Extra bodies can make a difference for a football team. So might Thomas, Boston, McCoy or any of the other well-regarded prospects who fell out of the first round on Thursday evening.
Thomas could join a very clear position of need for the 49ers, whose defensive line play cratered with Nick Bosa’s season-ending injury in Week 3 of 2025. Bryce Huff has also since retired.
There’s a chance the team might look to employ a 3-4 defense under former Atlanta Falcons head coach and new 49ers defensive coordinator Raheem Morris. This could mean eschewing more defensive tackles or ends in favor of linebackers, who are easier to select in the middle to late rounds of the draft.
All the same, nothing seems definite yet in terms of what kind of defensive schemes the 49ers will run this season and talented defensive linemen can be worth picking up no matter what. So Thomas might get a hard look from San Francisco no matter what they’re planning.
San Francisco’s wide receiver corps hasn’t seemed in as rough of shape as its defensive line, but between Brandon Aiyuk’s likely release, Jauan Jennings still being unsigned and tight end George Kittle unlikely to start the regular season due to a torn Achilles, the team could need more people who can catch the ball.
