Draft intrigue at 3-4 shifts to Fargo … With the 2021 draft now just over 10 days away and counting, the focus of NFL personnel people will be on Fargo where star North Dakota State QB Trey Lance will be the featured attraction at a special pro day event on Monday. And we probably won’t know until tomorrow exactly which teams will attend Lance’s work out; however, we know already that both San Francisco and Atlanta, which have the 3rd and 4th picks respectively, in this year’s opening round, will have full complements in Fargo as will Denver and New England. In particular, the 49ers will be there with G.M. John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan as they try and finalize which QB they will be taking with the 3rd pick. Neither attended Lance’s initial pro day back in March as the 49ers had not yet traded up with Miami to acquire the 3rd pick overall. The consensus around the league still appears to be that the 49ers will take Alabama’s Mac Jones at that spot, but San Francisco is doing a lot of due diligence for a team that supposedly has made its choice. Meanwhile, Atlanta will have first choice at Lance if the 49ers indeed opt for Jones and the reports out of the Falcons camp is that they are still very much debating whether to take the QB themselves even if it means sits behind veteran Matt Ryan for a year or two, trade the pick to another team that needs a QB, or keep the pick and select one of this year’s stellar non-QB prospects such as Florida TE Kyle Pitts. Not surprisingly, if the Falcons were to trade the 4th pick, the two most likely suitors are expected to be the Broncos and Patriots who have the 9th and 15th picks respectively. Also for the record, the NFL Network has a special ‘Path to the Draft’ scheduled for 4 PM ET Monday afternoon so they may have some coverage of Lance’s workout.
