Love them or hate them, Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch just put on a masterclass in draft-day wheeling and dealing. Five trades. Five. The 49ers front office treated the 2025 NFL Draft less like a talent selection process and more like a Wall Street trading floor — shuffling picks, moving up, moving down, and ultimately swinging bigger than most teams with half the draft capital would dare.

The headline moves? Fifth-round picks Enrique Cruz Jr. and Jaden Dugger, two players who embody what Shanahan has been quietly building toward for years: position-less football. These aren't guys who fit neatly into one box on a depth chart. They're versatile, multi-tool athletes who can line up in different spots and create mismatches — exactly the kind of players a creative offensive mind like Shanahan salivates over.

Here's what's interesting from a resource-allocation perspective: instead of reaching for big-name picks at premium slots and overpaying in draft capital, Lynch opted to trade aggressively, accumulate flexibility, and target players who offer more schematic value per dollar. It's the draft equivalent of fiscal conservatism — don't overspend on flash when you can get better returns by being smart with your assets.

Now, the skeptic's take: five trades also means five opportunities to be wrong. Position-less football sounds great in theory, but if your "do-everything" guys end up doing nothing particularly well, you've just burned picks on gadget players. The NFL graveyard is full of "versatile athletes" who never found a position.

But credit where it's due — the Niners have earned some benefit of the doubt here. This is the front office that found George Kittle in the fifth round and turned late-round flyers into genuine contributors year after year.

The real test comes in September. Until then, this is either a brilliant long-term strategy or a very elaborate way to outsmart yourself. Knowing Shanahan, it's probably a little bit of both.