49ers
49ers TE George Kittle handles the bulk of the receiving duty for San Francisco’s tight end group. Anyone else who wants to get on the field needs to be a great blocker, and that’s where the 49ers see third-round TE Cameron Latu fitting in eventually.
“He is an advanced blocker for college football, especially in this day and age of college football,” 49ers assistant GM Adam Peters said via the Athletic’s Matt Barrows. “And he’s a really competitive blocker and a good athlete. So when you have all those things together, that usually makes for a good blocker moving forward.”
San Francisco double-dipped at tight end, circling back in the seventh round for former Oklahoma TE Brayden Willis. In addition to earning a “gold helmet” designation that the 49ers hand out to only 15-20 prospects each year who are exemplary in performance, leadership and intelligence, Willis impressed the team with his ability after the catch and his versatility despite being on the smaller side.
“We loved his run-after-the-catch (rate),” Peters said. “That was backed up by our R&D guys. He had the highest broken-tackle percentage of all the drafted tight ends.”
“He had more value to us on the line of scrimmage than [Jaguars second-round TE] Brenton Strange did as a true Y tight end,” Peters added. “(Willis) doesn’t seem like he’s that big when you look at him on tape. But he’s 245 pounds with long arms. So he certainly has the size to do that. And he certainly has the mentality to be a physical player.”
Rams
Rams HC Sean McVay told reporters that QB Matthew Stafford is looking great so far this offseason and has had no trouble making throws.
“He’s been awesome,” McVay said on NFL Network. “He’s got a great look in his eye. And even though he says he’s getting older, he still does look like a human JUGS machine out there. It’s like he was made to throw a football. When he’s feeling good, I feel a lot better as well. He just elevates people around him.”’
Seahawks
The Seahawks had one of the strongest draft classes in 2022 and seemed to have done well at the 2023 draft, with HC Pete Carroll noting that the team is picking up right where they left off last season.
”It feels like we’ve continued from where we left off last year in the draft effort,” Carroll said, via SeahawksWire.com. “Just the kinds of people, the opportunities that the guys are going to be faced with when they come here and they see their chances, it’s going to feel like last year in some regard… We love last year’s class, and we were fired up about this year’s class, and it just feels like we’ve added on to it. I’m really, really proud of the work that all the guys did and where we are right now. You have met a lot of these players and you can tell that they’re the kind of guys that we love, and it feels like an extension of some really good stuff. We’ve got to prove that, but it’s there for us to do. So It’s really exciting.”
- Seahawks HC Pete Carroll said CB Devon Witherspoon and WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba are both dealing with hamstring issues: “We don’t want to go too far, too fast. There’s no reason at this point because they can still get all the learning done.” (Curtis Crabtree)
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