49ers Roster Breakdown - Placing Players in Tiers

By Scooter_McG

Over the past few weeks I have been thinking about how the 49ers have to be one of the few NFL teams that have 5 or more top tier talent players not only at their position, but also in the NFL. Then over the past week I have seen lists of top players in the NFL produced that really rammed this home. 

First was Steven Cheah (Commissoner Cheah) of Bar Stool Sports who had five 49ers players in his top 35 players in the NFL (Trent Williams #9, Deebo Samuel #17, Nick Bosa #18, George Kittle #32, Fred Warner #35). That was the most of any team in the top 35. A 6th player (Arik Armstead, #97) made it into his top 100. Now ESPN has recently released a list that had each of those six players in the top 10 of their respective positions (Williams #1 OT, Kittle #1 TE, Bosa #3 DE, Warner #3 LB, Armstead #8 DT, Samuel #9 WR). The 49ers also have another player who is the best at his position in Kyle Juszczyk, but FB was not included as a separate category.  

As a fun exercise I thought it would be interesting to consider the 49ers roster as a whole in terms of player "tiers" to see how the roster is constructed. 

In undertaking this process I decided on the following tier structure:

Franchise tier. Represents established players that are among the very best in the NFL, regardless of position. These are the players that the team is built around and that opponents try and take away/ game plan around to try and limit their impact. 

Foundation tier: Represents established players that are strong contributors to the team and are guys that form part of the team's foundation, but aren't "elite". While not necessarily players you build the team around, these are guys you want to keep and aren't looking to improve on. 

Future star tier: The above two tiers are based around players that have already proven themselves. This tier represents those players that have very strong and reasonable expectations to grow into one of the above tiers. To be in this tier the player can have no more than 2 accrued seasons, and has to have either been drafted very high (i.e. 1st round) and/ or shown something in the NFL to warrant belief they can be in the above tiers.  

Building block tier: These are your good, solid starters/ role players that you can count on to get the job done at an above average starter level, but also wouldn't necessarily fight hard or pay overs to keep. 

Promising youngster tier: These are the young players that haven't yet proven they can be reliable starters or important role players, but have shown sufficient promise to reasonably think they can get there. As with the future star tier, to be in this tier the player can have no more than 2 accrued seasons and has to have been drafted reasonaly high (top 100 pick) and/ or shown something to think they will develop into starters. 

The depth: Basically, everyone else is depth. Obviously there is still varying levels of quality in the depth, but these are still the guys that fill out the roster and are, for the most part, easily replacable. 

Before getting into my ratings, it is important to note that the tier system is fluid. Just because I place a player in one tier now does not mean I think they will always be that tier or that they can't improve (or get worse). Also, I have not included specialists as anything more than depth as for the most part specialists are replacable. 

Finally, I have not included Jimmy G in this roster breakdown. 

So here is my tiered list of the 49ers roster:

Franchise tier (5): Trent Williams, Nick Bosa, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Fred Warner. These five players are all among the best in the NFL at their position and overall. 

Foundation tier (4): Arik Armstead, Jimmie Ward, Charvarius Ward, Kyle Juszczyk. There may be some arguments for Armstead to be bumped up a tier, but for mine this is closer to where his value sits for the 49ers. Not a true game wrecker or a guy teams need to game plan around, but a strong contributor nonetheless. Charvarius Ward hasn't shown it as a 49ers yet, but if he translates the level of play he brought to the Chiefs to the 49ers, this is where he sits on the 49ers tiers. While Juice is the best at his position in the NFL, in terms of overall impact on the roster he is more a foundation tier player. 

Future star tier (2): Trey Lance, Eli Mitchell. You could argue Trey hasn't shown enough in the NFL yet to warrant being in this tier, but personally I thought last year was very promising in limited action and his skillset is undeniable. The expectation is and should be he will at least be a foundation tier player, and hopefully a franchise tier player. Mitchell I could easily have placed in the foundation tier now, but want to see him replicate what he did last season first. 

Building block tier (5): Mike McGlinchey, Emmanuel Moseley, Brandon Aiyuk, Dre Greenlaw, Azeez Al-Shaair. McGlinchey was moving towards being a foundation player over his first couple of seasons, but 2020 and 2021 put some doubt into his value to the team and I think this is more aligned with where he is currently at. But a strong 2022 could see him move to foundation tier from 2023 onwards. Aiyuk has already shown he should be considered a solid to good starter (thus building block tier), but is also still young with potential to grow into a higher tier. Moseley and Greenlaw, when healthy, have shown to be good starters. Al-Shaair was a toss up as to whether to put him here or in the depth list, but last season's level of play was good enough to have him here for now.  

Promising youngster tier (4): Javon Kinlaw, Aaron Banks, Drake Jackson, Ambry Thomas. Kinlaw finds himself here rather than the future star tier as there are enough question marks following his first two season to wonder if he will live up to the expectations of his draft spot. Banks could easily have dropped off this list to the depth tier, but in the end I decided we simply didn't get to see anything from him last year so for now he remains considered a promising youngster. Thomas makes it on based on being a day 2 pick that showed some promise in the back end of last season. Jackson finds himself here purely based on draft slot/ college tape. 

The rest of the players on the roster I have classified as depth. There are a few guys arguments could be made to be moved to a higher tier, but in the end I decided against it. A few notables that missed out:

- Talanoa Hufanga: expected to be in the mix to start this year and had some promising flashes last year, but not enough to warrant thinking the former 5th round pick belongs yet in a higher tier. 

- Jason Verrett: only misses out due to injuries. If healthy, he's at worst a building block tier player. 

- Jauan Jennings: Came on nicely to finish last year and there has been plenty of positive talk this offseason. But want to see him prove it before placing him as more than depth. 

- Ty Davis-Price/ Danny Gray: Technically could be looked at for the promising youngster tier given they were 3rd rounders this year, but let's see what they have first. 

- Trey Sermon: As a 3rd round pick last year could also be looked at for the promising youngster tier, but his 2021 season did nothing to make me believe he deserves to be considered more than depth.   

There are also a bunch of good depth pieces such as Hurst, Ebukam, McCloud, Odum, Turay, etc that arguments could be made for to bump them into the building block tier, but in the end I think they form more high end depth/ rotation than genuine good starters. 

So that's my look at the 49ers roster. Having five guys in the top tier and four in the next shows why the team is a genuine contender, as those are the tiers that move the needle the most. If Lance can move into one of those tiers quickly then the 49ers are in a great place. 

However, I would like to see a few more players in the building block tier. Having some of the young players on the roster step into higher tiers would make this team very hard to beat.