How might recent 49ers’ drafts inform us about who Adam Peters is seriously considering this year?

Over the course of the past couple of years, in an effort to discern if there was any particular method to Ron Rivera’s drafting madness, I scoured the publicly-available information on draftees to see if a pattern emerged. It turned out that in 2021 and 2022 Washington drew heavily from Senior Bowl attendees. In retrospect, that seems to have been – at best – a mixed bag.

In any case, with a fresh crew in DC, led by General Manager Adam Peters and Assistant GM Lance Newmark, I thought I’d go back to look and see if I might be able to find interesting trends in how the 49ers have operated over the past couple of years, in order to provide some insights to what we might see Peters and company do in a few weeks.

Turns out there are some interesting findings. The first thing that I looked at was the extent to which San Francisco selected its draft picks from players who had taken “Top 30 visits.” What is a top 30 visit?

Every team is allowed up to 30 in-house visits with prospects. The teams can use them on whatever level of prospect they wish. It doesn’t necessarily indicate the team is “high” on a player or anything like that. Some teams use the visits to create the illusion of interest. Others want medical examinations and information with their own doctors and training staff, which is one of the key components of the visits.

The team doctors and trainers are permitted to perform their own medical evaluations of the players.

On-field football work is strictly forbidden by the league. Players can tour the facility but not do any football-related activities.

Teams often review a player’s game film with them. It gives the player a chance to explain the context of his performance in a particular situation, as well as letting the team get a feel for the player’s feel for the game and his ability to critically assess himself.

It’s a good opportunity to get to know the player on a deeper level.

And there was pretty immediate relationship, as you’ll see below.

Interestingly, as I got into this, I found that Niners’ writers stumbled upon the same thing last year. I’ve added an additional year of data here.

2022

Two years ago, five of the 49ers nine draftees (56%) had been involved in top 30 visits with the team. Their top four picks had all taken part in a visit. A full accounting of the 49ers meetings in 2022 can be found here.

In this draft, the 49ers took players at every position where they had someone in for a top 30 visit. The only position they drafted without a top 30 visit was QB (Brock Purdy).

2023

In 2023, the 49ers again drafted heavily from the group of players that they engaged for top 30 visits. Last year, four of San Francisco’s nine draftees (44%) were taken from this group.

For comparison, Washington also drafted four players from its top 30 group last year (Forbes, Martin, Stromberg, Daniels), and grabbed one as an UDFA (Brooks).

A full accounting of the 49ers meetings in 2023 can be found here.

Here, the top most represented positions, TE, CB, and WR, were again a pretty good indicator of the positions San Francisco ended up drafting. With 5 visits, the 49ers actually picked up two tight ends. They also grabbed one WR and one CB each.

What Might that Mean for Washington?

We’re fortunate that Scott and Ken do a great job of tracking visit information for the readers here at Hogs Haven. The current list of prospects who have been invited for visits this offseason is below.

Top 30 Visits (as of 4/12/24):

Kiran Amegadjie, OT, Yale (Source)

Austin Booker, DE/Edge, Kansas (Source)

Jayden Daniels, QB, LSU (Source)

Rod Gattison, CB, Western Carolina (Source)

Cam Hart, CB, Notre Dame (Source)

Javontae Jean-Baptiste, DE/Edge, Notre Dame (Source)

Elijah Jones, CB, Boston College (Source)

Marshawn Kneeland, DE/Edge, Western Michigan (Source)

Tyrice Knight, LB, UTEP (Source)

Drake Maye, QB, North Carolina (Source)

J.J. McCarthy, QB, Michigan (Source)

Jordan Morgan, OT, Arizona (Source)

Michael Penix Jr., QB, Washington (Source)

Chop Robinson, DE/Edge, Penn State (Source)

Roger Rosengarten, OT, Washington (Source)

Ja’Tavion Sanders, TE, Texas – (Source)

Caedan Wallace, OT Penn State (Source)

Trevin Wallace, LB, Kentucky (Source)

Jared Wiley, TE, TCU (Source)

The last day for Top 30 visits is this Wednesday, April 17th, so it’s possible one or two more players could be added to this list. Given Peters’ past history, I fully expect several of Washington’s draft picks to come from this list this year, including – almost certainly – one of the quarterbacks.

What other positions might they take? Well, with four tackles on that list, that’s probably a safe bet. EDGE, with four visits as well, and cornerback, with three visits, are also very likely targets. Tight end and linebacker, with two visits apiece, could be in the mix too.

There’s a distinct absence of interior offensive linemen, safeties, wide receivers, running backs, and interior defensive linemen, so I’d expect those positions to be low priorities in the draft unless a surprising value falls to Washington at one of their draft slots.

We’re almost there, folks.