Davidson;842294703 said:
The judgment we can make is that Keenan would have helped the niners tremendously last year, which is what we were talking about
He certainly could have. But at the time of the draft, Crabtree was not injured, the Niners had recently acquired Boldin, and WR was probably not seen as the biggest need on the team. The Niners would have needed to use a second round pick to acquire Allen. In retrospect, that's a bargain. But at the time, the front office made judgments based on current need. They selected the following three players before Allen was off the board:
1) Eric Reid - remember when Goldson started for the Niners? Yeah, me neither.
2) Tank Carradine - An interesting pick, because he should have been a first rounder, but he got injured. The Niners have a loaded roster, and can give him time to recover fully. If this pick works out, he will replace an aging Justin Smith as early as this season. Tank could be an impact player at arguably the most important (and underrated) position on the Niner's defense. When you think your starting receivers are set, this is a good decision.
3) Vance MacDonald - This is probably where the Niners, in retrospect, should have taken Allen. That being said, the "back up" tight end is one of the more important roles on the Niners offense. It's a crazy hybrid position that involves being a receiver, lineman, fullback, and basically anything strange that Greg Roman can cook up. Furthermore, the second TE is on the field more often than the third receiver in the Niners offense. This was the bigger need to fill. Unfortunately, Allen is a much better player.
Your assertion that Allen would have helped tremendously is spot on, but it also requires a great deal of hindsight. If the Niners knew they would be without Crabtree for much of the season, they absolutely would have picked a receiver earlier. Waiting until the 4th round to take Patton was not because of a bias
against Cal, though. It was because they filled what they saw to be bigger needs first. It's what every single NFL team tries to do. Except the Redskins...I have no idea what they are trying to do.