The 49ers were involved in the first big twist of the 2017 draft when they were able to obtain two third-round picks and a fourth-round pick for moving down one spot from No. 2 to No. 3 in a trade with the Bears.
General Manager John Lynch earned a lot of praise for pulling off that move while running his first draft since taking the job and he remained busy. After taking defensive lineman Solomon Thomas, who was the expected pick at No. 2, Lynch traded back into the first round by sending the newly acquired fourth-round pick and the No. 34 pick to Seattle to take linebacker Reuben Foster with the 31st overall selection.
That ended a major drop for Foster, who was generally expected to come off the board far earlier in the round, and gave the 49ers a player that Lynch said they rated right alongside Thomas on their board.
“I can tell you right off the bat that what we had on the board was just under 200 players, and in terms of how we rated them, we got two of our top three players,” Lynch said, via ESPN.com. “We were able to do that, and we’re thrilled. We’re ecstatic. We think these guys have a lot of traits of what we want to be about as a football organization.”
Both players should be playing early for the Niners and Lynch will be back at work trying to turn the team around on Friday night.