draft over

Keeping up with my favorite 49er discussion board throughout the year, and particularly leading up to the draft, I am able to see which players different fans would like to see get chosen. And then I become familiar with certain players based on several of the mock drafts that are available online. Finally comes the draft itself!

It's not exactly scintillating television throughout the entire process, but it is fun to see the draft day trades, when players get chosen (local Cal and Stanford players, nationally buzzed about names, and so on), then of course which ones are picked by the 49ers and even the Raiders. But it's mostly all about the Niners; as I stated above, I am vaguely familiar with what some fans from the discussion board would like to see happen, but the Niner brass are the ones that are closest to everything that's going on: college film, team needs and desires, measurables, unmeasurables, personal interviews, etc. A lot of picks are made that raise eyebrows amongst fans that seem to spend as much time analyzing the draft as the team itself! When I wonder why certain picks were made, often of players I've never heard of, I remind myself that the organization knows more about what they're after and trying to accomplish than anybody else.

What makes the whole process that much more fascinating is the involvement of 31 other teams, each with the same goal in mind and that's putting together a winning team. And now that the draft is over, it's time to sign undrafted free agents!