Kyle Shanahan says he listens to draft analysis from people outside 49ers. Here’s why
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- Kyle Shanahan says he listens to outside draft analysis to gauge player valuations.
- Shanahan said he evaluated Brock Purdy as about a fourth-round pick.
- John Lynch defended trading back for additional picks to infuse youth into the roster.
Growing up, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan immersed himself in the NFL draft every year.
He’d watch every bit of draft content he could find, listening to experts, commentators and the like rank the athletes on big boards and set up mock drafts. Using that expertise, Kyle Shanahan would approach his father, two-time Super Bowl winning head coach Mike Shanahan, asking why he selected certain players that he hadn’t heard of over more prominent prospects.
“‘Have you watched film on either one of them?’” Kyle Shanahan, speaking on a recent podcast, recalled his father asking; at the time, he responded with a no. “Odds are most of those people haven’t either. It takes too long to do it the right way, so they’re repeating what other people say, which doesn’t make it wrong, but you’ve got to be careful of it.”
About a month after an NFL draft that saw draft analysts like ESPN’s Matt Miller say the Niners selected “reach after reach” — including the team’s first selection De’Zhaun Stribling with the No. 33 overall pick — this lesson that Shanahan learned from his football legend of a father, he said, has continued to inform his approach to the draft, and how much he listens to outside noise.
“I want to hear what everyone’s talking about out there,” Shanahan said of listening to outside draft experts on an episode of the Tom Tolbert Show podcast posted Monday. “Not because I want their opinion on it necessarily — I want the people’s opinion in our building — but I want to have an idea of where people are valued.”
During the hour-and-a-half interview hosted in sports broadcaster and former NBA player Tolbert’s backyard, Shanahan and 49ers general manager John Lynch discussed their 2026 draft class, upcoming schedule and more.
Purdy a prime example of 49ers draft strategy
Shanahan said the 49ers have built much of their core, which has gone to two Super Bowls in the last seven years and won at least one playoff game in five of those, in the draft.
Of their recent successes, one of the biggest is now-star starting quarterback Brock Purdy, whom the team selected as “Mr. Irrelevant,” or the 262nd and final pick in the 2022 draft.
Shanahan said the team liked Purdy a lot at Iowa State and evaluated him at about a fourth-round draft pick. However, Purdy was overlooked by scouts and media, Shanahan said, so the team waited until the last pick to draft him, assuming he wouldn’t get picked by another team.
Before Purdy went on a historic seven-game winning streak to the NFC Championship to close his rookie season, he was set to be the third-string QB for the 49ers behind Jimmy Garoppolo, who was in his sixth season with the team after leading the team to a Super Bowl in 2019; and 2021 No. 3 overall pick Trey Lance.
However, Shanahan said whenever 49ers owner Jed York asked him which quarterback was performing the best in practice, he would say Purdy.
“I’m just telling you, it’s the third guy,” Shanahan recalled telling York. “He’s like, ‘What? Who?’”
After both Garoppolo and Lance got hurt, Purdy got his chance during Week 13 in 2022 against the Miami Dolphins in the first quarter, completing 25-of-37 passes for 210 yards and two touchdowns that catapulted him toward the starting job long term.
“That might have been the first time I was like, ‘We might have something special,’” Shanahan said.
Lynch talks draft strategy, international games
Lynch said he knew making back-to-back trades to trade out of the first round in exchange for additional draft picks would be controversial with fans, but said he stood by the decision, which awarded them a third-round pick in exchange for a fourth rounder, the first pick of the second round and a late fifth-round pick.
“We had a method. We knew what we were trying to achieve,” Lynch said. “We wanted more picks than the six we had. We wanted to infuse some more youth into our team.”
On the podcast, Lynch and Shanahan also addressed the Week 1 matchup between the 49ers and divisional rival Los Angeles Rams in Melbourne, Australia.
Previously, Shanahan has expressed annoyance with the Rams for allegedly asking to play the 49ers in the international contest, saying it might be a way to not have 49ers fans take over SoFi Stadium.
When asked about the game by Tolbert, Shanahan again said he was not happy to face an NFC West opponent on the other side of the globe, and especially annoyed that the Rams allegedly asked for the matchup, despite saying he was excited about the event itself and that the game was good for the sport overall.
“We only get three close flights (a season),” Shanahan said, referencing the road NFC West matchups. “To get one of those taken away is tough. When you travel a lot, especially when it’s 19 hours away on an airplane, that’s not a small flight. That stuff adds up.”
The Melbourne game is one of two international games on the 49ers schedule this season, the other being a Week 11 matchup with the Minnesota Vikings in Mexico City. This season, the 49ers will become the first NFL team to play two international games on non-consecutive weeks.
However, Lynch said that won’t affect how the team approaches the game.
“We’re fired up,” Lynch said. “We’re shifting our mindset. It’s our schedule, we’re going to make the best of it... and we’ll take over whatever the stadium’s name is.”
That stadium, Week 1 of the season, is the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
