SANTA CLARA — Picked to bolster the trenches, 49ers first round selections DeForest Buckner and Joshua Garnett both entered the season expecting to make an immediate impact.
One rookie is living up to that promise — and then some — while the other is searching for answers as to why he watched Week 1 in street clothes.
Buckner played 51 snaps Monday against the Rams, by far the highest of any 49ers defensive lineman. A source indicated it was not scripted that way in practice, suggesting defensive coordinator Jim O’Neil simply couldn’t take Buckner off the field. After forcing four quarterback hurries and playing a key role in shutting down Todd Gurley, his role as a rookie is going to expand.
“I thought he was disruptive in the run game,” O’Neil said. “He made some plays in the pass game. I thought it was a great start for him.”
The roses aren’t smelling as strong for Garnett, who was a last-minute healthy scratch against the Rams. Anthony Davis and Marcus Martin were the lone backup offensive linemen, and both saw snaps in garbage time. It was an unexpected wakeup call for the rookie.
“There’s more strides I need to make, obviously,” Garnett said in the locker room Wednesday. “Obviously there’s something that I’m not doing.”
The agonizing part about Garnett’s slow development is that the 49ers traded back into the first round to obtain him. Teams generally don’t trade back into the first round for a developmental project, which is what Garnett has all of a sudden turned into. GM Trent Baalke sent their second-, fourth- and sixth-round picks to Kansas City to make the deal. Monday was the first time Garnett had ever watched a football game from the sidelines.
As Garnett wonders if he will see the field in 2016, other late-round draft choices Rashard Robinson and Ronald Blair continue to carve out their roles. Filling in for the injured Chris Davis, Robinson logged 25 snaps mostly at nickel back; Blair saw just seven snaps, but made the most of them, including pressuring Case Keenum into an incomplete pass on third-down early in the game. For job security purposes, Baalke needs as many of the rookies from the 2016 draft class to show up as possible.
Luckily for the 49ers, the team can afford Garnett’s slower than anticipated NFL transition. The line play was the strength of Chip Kelly’s offense in Week 1, and will likely continue that trend. Right guard Andrew Tiller, who nobody expected to win the Week 1 starting job, setup a Carlos Hyde touchdown in the first quarter on an excellently blocked counter-trey run. Unless the offensive line abruptly starts to struggle, Garnett might not see the field in 2016. That’s a scary thought for both the team and the player.
Baalke can breathe a sigh of relief about Buckner, though. Early returns on the No. 7 overall pick are very strong.