Jim Mora Jr. Predicts Which Quarterback the 49ers Will Draft

"I can tell you that Kyle and John are sitting back in their chairs right now confident that they're going to take the guy that they've had conviction about for quite a while."

I asked former head coach Jim Mora Jr. to predict which quarterback the 49ers will draft tonight. Here's what he said:

ME: According to reports, the 49ers are split on who they want to take.

MORA Jr.: "They're not."

ME: Kyle Shanahan reportedly wants Mac Jones while John Lynch and the scouts want Trey Lance. Do you imagine there's tension between them?

MORA Jr.: "No, and I'll tell you why: they're not split. I'm going to give you some reality. It's inconceivable to me that John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan, two men that are as good as there is in this business, would trade up to the third pick without conviction in who they wanted to take. Now, that may have vacillated a little bit over the last weeks, but here on the day of the draft, there's no way that I can perceive there's any tension in that room, and that they don't know exactly who they want and haven't known for weeks. 

"I think it's media hype creating topics of discussion. I think it's awesome because it brings people to our platform. It's watercooler talk. But I can tell you that Kyle and John are sitting back in their chairs right now confident that they're going to take the guy that they've had conviction about for quite a while. We don't know who that is. It could be Mac Jones. It could be Trey Lance. It could be Justin Fields. But they're in alignment. In the draft, there's never going to be complete agreement. And when I say complete agreement, I mean everybody in the room -- scouts, coaches, personnel executives, head coach, GM -- but you better have alignment. When you're taking the third pick, you better have agreement and alignment. And I can tell you, because I know those men so well, that there is agreement and alignment. Now, that could be they're going to trade back a couple picks and still get their guy. That's what makes this first round so intriguing."

Q: Which quarterback do you think the 49ers will draft?

MORA Jr.: Mac Jones. But I only have a 33 percent chance to be right. I'm just trying to read the tea leaves, and often times you're wrong. I think the 49ers have done a masterful job of deceiving everybody. I think it's fantastic."

Watch the full interview below:


Published
Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.