Cohn: Bold move needed, so Niners should trade down

<p>I am challenging the 49ers to be bold and creative in the NFL draft. I don't have much hope they will be bold and creative, this team without a winning season seven times in a row. No, I don't have much hope they will meet the challenge. But they need to try.</p><p>People expect little from the Niners. People are satisfied with little from this organization, have set their collective sights so low — about knee level. The 49ers have been reduced to a cute little team that has made cute little progress. And for this we are supposed to applaud.</p><p>The 49ers need to make a big gesture in the next few days. Can they?</p><p>I want to give you some context. I want to go back to 1986, when Bill Walsh ran the draft for San Francisco. You remember Walsh, a man with vision as wide as Cinemascope, a man with guts when it came to running a draft.</p><p>OK, 1986: In the first round, Walsh did not take a single draft pick. He traded away three picks and everyone thought he finally had flipped his lid. When was this guy going to make a choice for crying out loud?</p><p>In the second round, he took Larry Robert and then traded away another second-round pick. So far, he had whiffed four of five times. The Niners seemed to be sinking.</p><p>And then he went to work. Boy, did he go to work.</p><p>Third round: Tom Rathman, Tim McKyer, John Taylor (not a bad third round).</p><p>Fourth round: Charles Haley, Steve Wallace, Kevin Fagan (not a bad fourth round).</p><p>Sixth round: Don Griffin.</p><p>That was a brilliant draft — a legendary draft — and Walsh showed his guts and imagination. He showed he was miles ahead of other personnel people in the league. That is the kind of draft that sets up a franchise for years. That is the kind of draft the Niners need right now. Do they dare?</p><p>I'm saying the 49ers have two first-round picks and one in the second round. I'm saying they should trade down with one of the first-round picks and maybe the second-round pick so they can accumulate more picks. I'm challenging them to be as good as Walsh.</p><p>The draft contains certain players the 49ers love and many they like. They need to embrace “like.” They need to draft at least two very good offensive linemen because their line isn't good enough and because Alex Smith gets jittery under a pass rush and needs to feel confident his line will protect him. He's entitled to expect that.</p><p>There is talk the 49ers will use (waste) one of their first-round picks on Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen if he's available. Nuts to that. The 49ers need to embrace the basics of team building, and that means getting grunts who get down and dirty. They took Michael Crabtree last year and had to endure his ridiculous holdout and still they couldn't make the playoffs. They have to build a team the right way.</p><p>After getting offensive linemen, they need another defensive back and, come on, they need another big-time pass rusher. You know that. Quarterback is way down the list, no matter what you think of Smith. The 49ers need lots of good players and they should trade down for them.</p><p>Scot McCloughan, deposed, did not advocate trading down. He is a straight-ahead man who does not enjoy getting subtle or tricky. He wanted the players he wanted. Which means he was limited. I am told Jed York and Paraag Marathe, vice president of football operations, are more inclined to trade down. I don't know how Trent Baalke feels or what kind of juice he has when it comes to making deals during the draft.</p><p>I do know this draft is deep and it will unfold over days. This is the perfect draft for wheeling and dealing and that's what the 49ers must do. You can bet other teams will.</p><p>So, let the 49ers be leaders in the league. Let them emulate Bill Walsh. Let them make an enormous move. The time for cute little drafts is over.</p><p>For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular go to the Cohn Zohn at blog.pressdemocrat.com/cohn. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.</p>