As Christian McCaffrey starts to get back into form and the 49ers' offense is slowly beginning to resemble an elite squad again, it's worth a jog down memory lane to remember that two of their key weapons — Brock Purdy and George Kittle — are only there thanks to a simple twist of fate and a nearly forgotten third-string quarterback.
Back in the offseason of 2017, the 49ers were deep into film and research on promising Iowa quarterback C.J. Beathard, who they thought might be their quarterback of the future. They were evaluating so much tape on Beathard that they also happened upon footage of Beathard's Iowa teammate and tight end target, George Kittle.
The Niners drafted Beathard in the third round that year, and when Kittle was still on the board in round five, they drafted him as well.
We all know how well Kittle worked out, and you might think leading the Niners to their star tight end is all C.J. Beathard offered San Fran — but you'd be wrong.
Because when Beathard decided to sign with the Jacksonville Jaguars after four years with the 49ers, his new deal was for two years and $5 million. That ended up being just enough for the NFL to award San Francisco that most elusive and mysterious of draft-related phenomena — a compensatory draft pick.
On its football operations website, the league explains compensatory picks thus: “Under the rules for compensatory draft selections, a team losing more or better compensatory free agents (‘CFA') than it acquires in the previous year is eligible to receive compensatory draft picks.”
In effect, they're picks awarded to teams who lose a considerable amount more than they gain in free agency on a given year. Tom Brady was also drafted with a compensatory pick, so they've got a pretty good track record for game-changing quarterbacks.
It should come as no surprise then that the compensatory pick the 49ers received for Beathard was — you guessed it — #262 in the 2022 NFL Draft. The last pick in the NFL Draft, which comes with the endearing nickname of “Mr. Irrelevant” for whoever's name is called, was famously used to draft Brock Purdy, who has easily gone on to be the most successful “Mr. Irrelevant” QB the league has ever seen.
But the 49ers never would have drafted Brock Purdy if they didn't have that compensatory pick, which they only got thanks to C.J. Beathard signing with the Jaguars. And they never would have discovered George Kittle if they hadn't been scouting C.J. Beathard to begin with. So when Beathard eventually retires, John Lynch and the 49ers front office might want to think about offering the man a job because he seems to offer a string of good luck for the franchise.
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