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I have spent more hours than I care to count watching the NFL draft class of 2024. I tried to watch every player that had a chance of being drafted in the first seven rounds, so I lost count of how many guys that was long ago. It’s all in my notes.

And amid the countless players and countless hours, I came away with one thing I fully knew to be true — a conviction I felt deep, down in my bones:

Ricky Pearsall was the truth.

He was my favorite player in this draft, my pick not just for value, not just for a pick in the region the 49ers would be picking, but overall. No adjectives or caveats are needed.

I am fully convinced he will be the standout from this draft.

So for the 49ers to pick him with their first-round pick — No. 31 — deserves an A+ grade.

There will be plenty of folks, beholden to baseless mock drafts, who say that Pearsall was a bad pick for the 49ers at No. 31.

“They could have waited,” they’ll argue.

“No one else saw him as a first-round pick,” I heard almost instantly after the pick was made.

I laugh at both notions and any knock on Pearsall.

Watch the tape.

I did. The 49ers did. It’s impossible not to love this guy, especially when you think about him in Kyle Shanahan’s offense.

This is a player that has velcro hands, quick feet, and an unmistakable feel for playing the position.

Forget all that quantifiable stuff. Feel for the game that separates guys who can run and catch with guys who can consistently win at receiver.

Amon-Ra St. Brown ran a horrible 40-yard dash and isn’t even 6 feet tall. But he feels a defense and knows how to attack space. He just rightly received the most guaranteed money for a receiver in NFL history.

Keenan Allen, Michael Pittman, Puka Nacua — these guys aren’t athletic marvels compared to some of their peers. Coming out of college, they were overlooked because they didn’t test off the charts.

But all they’ve done in the NFL is catch passes. They have feel for the game and they win again and again and again because of it.

And finding a player with that feel — that innate understanding of space, time, and situation — makes folks who watch a lot of football feel something, too.

They’re rare. And when one is available, you take them, even if Pro Football Focus or some draft YouTuber claims it’s a “stretch” or “bad value” to select them.

“Ricky was a guy that we got a lot of conviction a lot of consensus from every area of our organization,” John Lynch told KNBR after making the pick. “Ricky was a guy that just kept gaining steam.”

The same thing happened to everyone I talked to in and around the league. He was your favorite football dork’s favorite player, your no-name scout’s favorite player, and probably your favorite player’s favorite player in this draft.

Pearsall was easy to overlook amid a loaded wide receiver class this season. I know I didn’t give him his fair due until later in my evaluation process.

I knew he was good — I watch a lot of SEC football in the fall and Pearsall ripped up my Mizzou Tigers — but I didn’t think of him as an elite prospect.

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But once I did start watching him in earnest, I couldn’t stop. For the last month, he has occupied my mind more than any other prospect.

He has great hands and a seemingly infinite catch radius. He blocks at a high level. He separates consistently at the line of scrimmage. He has the kind of crazy you need to repeatedly run over the middle of the field, catch the ball, and be rewarded with a helmet in the sternum for your hard work. He’s excellent in the open field. He can run the ball out of the backfield and be your starting returner on kickoffs and punts.

Florida’s offense was a mess this past year. Pearsall made it look competent at times. And his best routes, flare screens and intermediate digs, are the bread-and-butter concepts of a Shanahan offense.

Pearsall was a good college receiver. He’ll be an even better pro receiver.

Of course, adding a receiver at this point in the draft raises questions about the current crop of receivers in Santa Clara.

I’ll say this: Brandon Aiyuk is the 49ers’ X receiver of the present and the future. The contract will come.

Pearsall might have to wait for a season to be a starter — Deebo Samuel will likely only play one more year for the Niners — but he will be the Z receiver of the future, and a perfect counterbalance to Aiyuk.

He’ll also be an easy, reliable target for quarterback Brock Purdy. These two are going to make beautiful music together.

He might be a stretch at No. 31, sure. Could the Niners have traded down a few picks and taken him? Maybe, maybe not.

But no matter where he was selected, this is a guy that the 49ers had to take.

The fact is that he is perfect for the 49ers’ offense, and had Lynch and Shanahan cared about mock drafts and other teams’ public boards, they would have passed on him.

And they would have lived with the regret of doing that for as long as Pearsall is in the league — which I suspect will be a long time.

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Pearsall would have been the one who got away.

You can’t let that happen.

In the coming hours, days, and weeks, much will be made about what this means to the rest of the 49ers’ wide receiver core.

Here’s what it means: It improved significantly in the short and long term on Thursday.

I’ll gladly put my neck out there. Pearsall is going to be a stud for the Niners. In a matter of months, no one will be complaining about where he was taken.

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