The Athletic

Look at the San Francisco 49ers roster and figure out a way for a good chunk of a 10-player draft class to make the team’s 53-man cutdown. It’s not easy. That’s one of the challenges the 49ers face entering the NFL Draft. The team remains loaded with talent. Meanwhile, the front office used free agency to insulate the roster’s floor at some potentially problematic spots, so there’s an opportunity to swing big now. In fact, it might be necessary to swing big if the 49ers want to follow the most efficient path forward. The draft is inherently a crapshoot, but the 49ers must simultaneously thread a needle to fit their new crop of players into the framework of the roster. And that means that a consolidation of picks to trade up — assuming there’s a mid-first-round prospect the 49ers are enamored with — makes a lot of sense.