San Francisco 49ers' Mykel Williams Faces Growing Skepticism

If you ask any analyst the worst pick of the 2025 NFL draft, almost every answer will be Mykel Williams. Whether they believe it or not, it shows in all the analyses of the draft now that a year has passed. In a recent re-draft of the first round, Gary Davenport of Bleacher Report got through all 32 picks before we saw Williams go off the board.

San Francisco 49ers 11th overall pick not selected in 2025 re-draft

Some this is fair. Williams only produced one sack in his rookie year. Even that sack came as an interior rusher. His ability to rush from the inside was supposed to be a positive trait, but not the only trait that he had worth any value. He flashed at times as a run defender, but not nearly enough to get the credit of being a potential first-round pick. You could argue that Alfred Collins had a bigger impact in the ground game.

While the ACL injury is out of his control, if General Managers were drafting the 2025 class with that information in mind, it is easy to leave him out of the mix. Still, Travis Hunter still went top five in this re-draft despite a lack of production and an ACL injury.

This is not the only re-draft where Williams has not appeared, either. It is a sign across the NFL landscape that Williams was not valued highly before the draft, and most experts are being proven right and knocking him down their board. The players that they bought into pre-draft might get more slack after a down rookie season.

Williams can still prove himself, though. If he grows more as a pass rusher in his second year and stays healthy he could start to get his recognition back. Still, right now it is hard to see the ceiling.

The two next notable names that were missing were Kenneth Grant and Walter Nolen. Grant went 13th overall and Nolen went 17th. Both had similar issues to Williams. Grant is primarily a run defender, so his efforts do not show up in the box score. Nolen spent most of his season injured. So, the run defenders and injured players were dinged the most from this exercise.

It will be interesting to see how these players fare as the years goes on and we see their long term value. For now, the picks are being questioned.

Add us as a preferred source on Google