San Francisco 49ers keep winning despite missing this opportunity

This is unfortunate.

Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

The San Francisco 49ers made it to the Divisional round of the NFC playoffs with so many injuries and even more than that, they are getting very little from their rookie draft class. Aaron Schatz of ESPN recently ranked all 32 draft classes and he did not have good things to say about the 49ers. 

The San Francisco 49ers rookie class is one of the worst in the NFL. 

Schatz put them at 27th overall. They are ahead of the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Los Angeles Rams. 

To start, it is easy to rank them low when you have Mykel Williams hurt, Nick Martin doing nothing before getting hurt, Jordan Watkins, Jordan James, Kurtis Rourke, and Junior Bergen doing nothing as well. 

Connor Colby and Marques Sigle started and were benched. 

It leaves Upton Stout, Alfred Collins, and CJ West as the real impact players. Collins and Stout start and look good, but West is more of a rotational depth player. 

29th is not a completely wrong ranking, but you can probably make a case that they could have been a tick higher. 

The Raiders were 29th, almost solely due to Ashton Jeanty. Schatz called Charles Grant, who started one game a hit, but other than Caleb Rogers, a guard with six starts, is the only other hit. They took Jeanty over a lot of building blocks at valuable positions and now have a running back with a bad roster. A lot of their misses look worse. 

Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images

The Commanders have Josh Conerly, Trey Amos, and Jacory Croskey-Merrit. Conerly took lumps as a starter, Amos got hurt, and JCM rotated split time with Chris Rodriguez.  The only known starter on the Colts, who rank 24th, is Tyler Warren. Cincinnati started their two rookie linebackers, and it led them to an awful defense. The Lions' best pick is a right guard. 

It is all pretty subjective, but it is fair to say that their draft class would sit in the bottom third of the NFL.

This is to speak about how good of a job Kyle Shanahan and Robert Saleh have done this year. They were dealt a bad hand with a lot of questions on their roster, and they are one game away from playing for the conference. 

It also raises questions about the future and John Lynch, who needed to hit big on a draft class this year, but swung and missed too often. He may get away with it thanks to his head coach.