San Francisco 49ers Trying to Trade Up to Draft Sheldon Richardson

One of the most exciting aspects of the NFL Draft is potential trades that teams can make to move around the order. Usually, a team tries to trade back to compile picks and make it easier to choose a prospect. What is needed in that scenario is a team wanting to trade up to draft a prospect they know won’t fall to them but they feel they need. The San Francisco 49ers fall into the latter category and according to Yahoo! Sports’ Jason Cole, the Niners are looking to trade up and target Sheldon Richardson.

This isn’t breaking news, as the Niners have been looking to trade up for some time now. Even if they weren’t out loud about their intentions, the 49ers have a fat stack of picks that they don’t need and one of the only logical uses for all the picks would be to trade up. San Francisco is built to win now, and picking 31st and 34th overall does them little good. However packaging those picks to move up makes a ton of sense and it appears that’s what likely is going to happen.

While the intentions have been known for a while now, we finally have a name to attach as motivation for trading up. Next to Star Lotulelei and Sharrif Floyd, Richardson is the best defensive tackle prospect in the draft and can give the 49ers a massive advantage moving forward. Richardson isn’t expected to fall past the Carolina Panthers at 14th overall, meaning the Niners will have to trade up with a team higher than that who is comfortable with trading down.

One potential target would be the New York Jets at 13th overall. While they acquired the pick from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New York may look to grab San Francisco’s late first and very early second round pick to ensure they have as many as four picks in the top 40.

Obviously there are other trade candidates, but it’s looking like the Niners will find one and pull the trigger on a trade that will end up making them even more dangerous than they were before.