The 49ers are set to pick twice in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft on April 23, but that doesn’t mean they will.
San Francisco has seven picks in this year’s draft: Two in the first, two in the fifth, one in the sixth and two in the seventh. The 49ers wouldn’t pick anywhere between the No. 31 and No. 156 overall picks.
NFL Media’s Daniel Jeremiah thinks the 49ers’ second first-round pick is a trade possibility, given San Francisco’s mid-round picks and the potential for a team to trade into the first round and draft quarterback.
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“[It’s] not gonna be the 49ers making that pick,” Jeremiah said Tuesday on NFL Network’s “NFL Total Access” (H/T 49ers Web Zone), “but the 49ers trying to collect some picks they don't have in those middle rounds. I could definitely see that being a trade-up spot for some of those teams in Round 2 who want to get that extra year on the contract, come up to 31 and get your quarterback there."
Jeremiah said four QB prospects are surefire first-rounders: LSU’s Joe Burrow, Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa, Oregon’s Justin Herbert and Utah State’s Bryce Love. All it would take for the 49ers to trade the No. 31 overall selection, then, is one team interested enough in a quarterback such as Washington’s Jacob Eason or Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts to make a deal.
The 2018 draft offers some precedent for the package the 49ers could receive. The Baltimore Ravens traded a second-round pick (No. 52 overall), a fourth (No. 125) and a 2019 second-round pick (No. 53) to select future NFL MVP Lamar Jackson.
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That’s not to say Eason, Hurts or any other QB in the draft will reach Jackson's level, who fell to the end of the first round despite winning the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore in his decorated college career. The 49ers, however, likely would be able to recoup multiple picks if they traded out of the first round.
Coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch wouldn’t have the flexibility to do so had they not traded dominant defensive lineman DeForest Buckner to the Indianapolis Colts earlier this month. They acquired the No. 13 overall pick in exchange, setting them up to accumulate more draft picks if Jeremiah’s prediction holds true.