Looking at Adam Peters’ drafts through the draft commandment lens, Part 1

Washington fans are justifiably excited about the team’s first draft in a quarter century that won’t be corrupted by the influence of the organization’s former tinpot tyrant, or one of his incompetent henchmen. The sale to Josh Harris, and the arrival of a true GM, in the form of Adam Peters, herald a new era where – at a minimum – talented football people will be in full control of football operations.

It’s a lovely change of pace, and while I spent the better part of the past five years trying to get the knuckleheads formerly in charge of the draft to adopt a series of best practices to right the ship, it was often ignored.

I expect Peters to be a much more savvy talent evaluator and drafter than our previous staff, but I thought it would be fun to go back and look at the drafts in San Francisco where Peters had significant influence – though not absolute control – through the lens of my draft commandments.

For the purposes of this exercise, I will be examining the three drafts (2021-2023) where Peters was the 49ers’ Assistant General Manager, and seeing to what extent – if any – San Francisco hewed to the basic tenets set forth in the commandments.

I expect this to be a two or three part series. For reference, all of the “commandment” articles are linked below:

1. Thou shalt not draft offensive skill positions (other than QB) in the first round.

So, long story short, take these positions [RB, TE, and WR] off your first round board. Sure, grab a wide receiver in the second, and perhaps take a tight end or running back in the third (or later), but don’t you dare think about taking one on Day 1.

In the case of the 49ers, who only had a first round pick in 2021 – as a result of trading away first rounders in 2022 and 2023 (ouch!) – this became a fairly low bar to cross. With the one first round pick they had during this period, San Francisco selected quarterback Trey Lance in 2021.

That debacle will get its own exploration later in this series, but for the purposes of looking at this window of Peters’ career, he stuck by the first commandment, if only because he basically had to do so.

But let’s look at the corollaries, about taking these positions a bit later. Over this three year period, San Francisco took four offensive skill players on Day 2 (all in the third round, it turns out). Those players are listed below:

2021

• Trey Sermon (RB) – (Round 3)

2022

• Tyrion Davis-Price (RB) – (Round 3)
• Danny Gray (WR) – (Round 3)

2023

• Cameron Latu (TE) – (Round 3)

Unfortunately, none of these offensive skill players have looked great for the 49ers yet, but they did double-dip at RB in the 7th round of the 2021 draft, taking Elijah Mitchell, who has turned out to be a pretty reliable depth option for the team (1,523 yards, 9 TDs in three seasons).

All this having been said, particularly given Washington’s overarching need for improvement at the QB position, I fully expect Peters and company to stay true to the faith, in terms of the first commandment, in the 2024 draft.

2. Thou shalt always be looking to accumulate more picks, particularly on Day 2.

[T]he best general managers in the league understand the simple math of the draft: More picks, particularly in the relatively early part of the draft, represent more chances to “hit” on players, which is important, given the fundamental uncertainties of talent assessment, even among the best people in the world at it.

For this portion of the exercise, we’ll look at 49ers draft trades in detail for each of the past three years.

2021

• 49ers trade UP with the Dolphins, giving up pick #12, a 2022 first, a 2022 third, and a 2023 first for pick #3. (Trey Lance)
• 49ers trade DOWN with the Raiders, giving up picks #43 and #230 for #48 and #121.
• 49ers trade UP with the Rams, giving up picks #117 and #121 for pick #88. (Trey Sermon)

2022

• No trades

2023

• 49ers trade UP with the Vikings, giving up picks #102, #164, and #222 for pick #87 (Ji’Ayir Brown)

On net, the 49ers were much more likely to trade UP during this three-year window than they were to trade DOWN. And, the one time they did trade down, it wasn’t for more picks, but for closer picks, one of which they included in a package to trade UP.

In many respects, I think this – admittedly small – sample is a cautionary tale about the ill-considered orientation of trading UP, in general.

Couching the Lance move as anything other than a disaster is sugaring a turd. I’ve said it elsewhere, but had Brock Purdy not worked out after Lance went down in flaming glory, I firmly believe both John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan would have been on very hot seats.

In any case, my eternal hope is that Peters recognizes that’s not something he wants to be a part of during the rest of his – hopefully long – career in Washington.

The Sermon move in 2021 was entirely unnecessary, and as was mentioned above, he’s been outplayed several times over by Mitchell, taken four rounds later.

The 2023 trade up with Minnesota is interesting because while Ji’Ayir Brown played well at CB last year, he actually played very comparably to Mekhi Blackmon, who the Vikings took at #102 to play the same position. And, on top of Blackmon, Minnesota ended up taking QB Jaren Hall and RB DeWayne McBride, both of whom are likely to be depth players for the Vikings for at least the next couple of years.

Trading back and accumulating picks is not something San Francisco did well in Peters’ time as Assistant GM. In fact, quite the opposite. Let’s hope he’s reflected on that experience.

3. Thou shalt attempt to draft the best player available.

Two years ago, I wrote a detailed article looking at the best drafting operations in the league (from 2017-2019). Rather than focus simply on “starters drafted,” or something to that effect, I took a close look at those players, across the draft, who essentially far outplayed their draft position.

Peters was in San Francisco during that time, and – it turns out – San Francisco was the second best team in the league at drafting what I referred to as “impact steals” during that window. For the purposes of this exercise, an “impact steal” was:

a player whose actual performance is higher than would otherwise be expected, and whose performance itself has been exemplary.

That article was a massive data crunching exercise, so I can’t justify re-running it again just for this piece – though I would like to re-run it again at some point. However, I can look at the 49ers Day 2 and 3 picks from 2021 to 2023 to see how they stack up – on average – against peers drafted in the same rounds.

Here I will use “approximate value,” the same metric utilized in the original article, as a proxy for performance.

2021

• Round 2 – Aaron Banks (OL) – AV = 15; Avg AV rest of round = 12
• Round 3 – Trey Sermon (RB) – AV = 2; Avg AV rest of round = 9
• Round 3 – Ambry Thomas (DB) – AV = 5; Avg AV rest of round = 14
• Round 5 – Jaylon Moore (T) – AV = 6; Avg AV rest of round = 4
• Round 5 – Deommodore Lenoir (CB) – AV = 11; Avg AV rest of round = 5
• Round 5 – Talanoa Hufanga (S) – AV = 18; Avg AV rest of round = 3
• Round 6 – Elijah Mitchell (RB) – AV = 11; Avg AV rest of round = 4

2022

• Round 2 – Drake Jackson (OLB) – AV = 3; Avg AV rest of round = 10
• Round 3 – Tyrion Davis-Price (RB) – AV = 1; Avg AV rest of round = 5
• Round 3 – Danny Gray (WR) – AV = 1; Avg AV rest of round = N/A
• Round 4 – Spencer Burford (OL) – AV = 14; Avg AV rest of round = 6
• Round 5 – Samuel Womack (CB) – AV = 2; Avg AV rest of round = 4
• Round 6 – Nick Zakelj (OL) – AV = 0; Avg AV rest of round = 2
• Round 6 – Kalia Davis (DT) – AV = 0; Avg AV rest of round = 1
• Round 6 – Tariq Castro-Fields (CB) – AV = 1; Avg AV rest of round = N/A
• Round 7 – Brock Purdy (QB) – AV = 24; Avg AV rest of round = N/A

2023

• Round 3 – Ji-Ayir Brown (CB) – AV = 2; Avg AV rest of round = 2
• Round 3 – Jake Moody (K) – AV = 3; Avg AV rest of round = 2
• Round 3 – Cameron Latu (TE) – AV = 0; Avg AV rest of round = N/A
• Round 5 – Darrell Luter (CB) – AV = 0; Avg AV rest of round = 2
• Round 5 – Robert Beal (LB) – AV = 0; Avg AV rest of round = 3
• Round 6 – Dee Winters (LB) – AV = 1; Avg AV rest of round = 1
• Round 7 – Brayden Willis (TE) – AV = 0; Avg AV rest of round = 0
• Round 7 – Ronnie Bell (WR) – AV = 1; Avg AV rest of round = 0
• Round 7 – Jalen Graham (S) – AV = 0; Avg AV rest of round = 0

The players in italics above are essentially the “impact steals” of these drafts, and the reality is it’s way too early to say just about anything on that front about the 2023 draft. There just isn’t enough of a record to evaluate.

So, in the first two drafts (2021 & 2022), we have five separate players who have risen to that level:

• Deommodore Lenoir – Starting CB
• Talanoa Hufanga – First team All-Pro (2022)
• Elijah Mitchell – Has taken a backseat to Christian McCaffrey
• Spencer Burford – Starting G
• Brock Purdy – Pro Bowl (2023)

Five “impact steals” over two years would put the 49ers in second place again over the period I sampled previously. If observers want to dispute a player on this list meeting that threshold, four would tie them for second with two other teams. In any case, it suggests San Francisco has had a pretty good – if imperfect – eye for drafting the best players available after Day 1. A very encouraging sign for Washington’s future.

Stay tuned for the next entry in this series in a week or two.