49ers HC Kyle Shanahan walks through his scouting process ahead of the NFL Draft

I feel like I’m just always playing catch-up. That’s what John [Lynch] and his whole department do all year. So they’ve got a really good idea in January, where the season ends. They kind of re-evaluate it after the Pro Days and the Combine, and everything.

They don’t change that much, because we try to base everything off the film. There’s certain things guys can do that can hurt themselves or help themselves after that. But for me, I just picked up that tape for the first time in February. I usually don’t know who the Heisman is or anything at that time. I’ve been 100 percent NFL ball. That’s not surprising. College football is played on Saturday. That’s either a travel day or the 49ers have a final walkthrough plus a meeting at night. Their focus is on their job and the game taking place the next day. Kyle Shanahan saying he watches highlight tapes is where the internet brought out its jokes: It’s hard to catch up with all those guys, so you have to depend on a lot of other people. One way we do it here is, we give all the position coaches a responsibility to make highlight tapes on everybody. I tell them, you have to watch a lot of game tape to make those highlight tapes.

Then I study their highlight tapes so I can study 200 people. I always tell people, if I don’t like their highlight tape, then I’m not going to watch anything after. So those guys have to put a lot into their highlight tapes. If they can’t impress you with that, I always say, what’s the point of watching more?

Which I would love to watch more, but that’s the way you can get it done in a two-month timeframe. When you do get it done, I definitely don’t want to look at any more college ball until next February. NFLi is a little more fun for me to watch, and a little bit more of what I’m used to doing. It pertains to what we do.

But the draft is everything. You have to make sure you put all that time into it. But I will say, it’s hard over those two months when you watch all of those guys. You know you might only get 4 to 8 guys. It’s not like you get your choice of everybody. So sometimes you watch people, and you fall in love with them.

It just breaks your heart because the more you watch them, you realize that this guy is way too good, and there’s no chance we’re going to be able to get this guy. You kind of get worked up about it, like damn why did anyone lead me on like that. And you just gotta wait to see who falls to you. Naturally, some ran with that and thought Shanahan was typing in a name on YouTube, and that’s how he’s making decisions to run an NFL team. If we’re being rational, and this isn’t even defending the 49ers draft or Shanahan, just using logic, the coaching staff is putting together clips of NFL-worthy plays that are probably reels of three to five minutes. They aren’t highlights as much as they are plays that are transferable to what the 49ers do. The premise makes sense. If a player doesn’t jump off the screen or impress you in a 30-to-50-play cut-up, he’s probably underwhelming overall. Shanahan clearly watched the college football playoffs. Most of their draft picks were on playoff teams — at least the first few were. It was another draft where the 49ers weren’t thinking upside-down; they were thinking about prospects who have been in college for 5 years, who played, and are NFL-ready. That’s been a theme since 2024. Did you have any issues with Shanahan’s scouting process? Scroll down and let us know in the comments.