Kyle Shanahan: 49ers Would Have Drafted WR De’Zhaun Stribling in the 1st Round

San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan joined The Rich Eisen Show and pulled back the curtain on how a head coach actually grinds tape for the NFL Draft, and on the specific math that led the 49ers to take Old Miss wide receiver De'Zhaun Stribling.

Shanahan was candid about how late he gets started. While John Lynch and the scouting department live in college tape all year, Shanahan said he is always playing catch-up. He picks up the tape for the first time in February. He does not usually know who won the Heisman by the time he sits down. He is 100% NFL ball until then.

The workaround is a position-coach delegation system. Each position coach is responsible for building highlight tapes on every prospect at their position, which forces them to watch a lot of game tape to construct those packages. Shanahan then studies the highlight tapes and uses them as the gate. If he does not like the highlight tape, he is not watching anything else.

That structure, he said, is the only way to study 200 players in a two-month window.

Shanahan was honest about the emotional cost. Sometimes you watch a player, fall in love, watch more, and realize there is no chance you are getting them. He compared it to being led on. You wait to see who actually falls.

The other big reveal: the 49ers willingly traded out of the first round twice and ended up picking first on Friday night. Rich asked what made Stribling the choice in a deep wide receiver class.

Shanahan said the team had not committed to receiver going in. There were several positions they liked at 27. There were a couple of guys they would not move for, players they would have turned in the card on instantly if they had fallen. The odds of those names being there were low.

The plan was to trade back. The 49ers wanted to get to 30. Two trade-back scenarios fell through right when they were on the clock at 30. Then another team gave them the chance to fall back to 33. That was the structure they had been hoping for. The first goal had been to get their guy at 27. The second goal was to trade back twice, accumulate picks, and still get the guy. They got the second one.

The deeper anxiety, Shanahan said, was about pick volume. The 49ers entered the draft with only six picks after sending a third to Dallas for OSA. The strength of this draft, in their evaluation, was the second round through the end of the third, and they only had one pick in that range.

Shanahan said he was worried about coming out of the draft with only four players when the team needed eight or more across the next two years for roster math reasons.

The outcome flipped the worry on its head. The 49ers ended the weekend with eight players, all with what Shanahan called a very good chance of making the team, plus a sixth-round pick in next year's draft, which he flagged as ammo for trade-deadline activity.

The Stribling pick, in other words, was not a single decision. It was the visible end of a much longer trade-back algorithm.