John Lynch’s top three moves with the 49ers so far
What are John Lynch’s top three moves as 49ers GM so far?
The San Francisco 49ers’ decision to hire John Lynch as the team’s new general manager back in the 2017 offseason was met with plenty of skepticism, and rightfully so.
Lynch was previously working for FOX Sports as a television color analyst for Sunday football games, and even though he’d been a Hall of Famer caliber player on the field, there was really no logical jump from the TV booth to the GM chair for Lynch.
Except, the more you thought about that move, the more it was a brilliant risk from the 49ers.
As I wrote back in 2017, the decision to hire Lynch as the GM was unconventional but intriguing to say the very least.
Lynch’s job as a color analyst involved a number of responsibilities. First and foremost, you have to know your subject matter and basically break down film like a head football coach every single week. Only unlike a coach, the film breakdown aspect from the TV analyst’s perspective is more like a GM evaluating talent because you have to offer unbiased analysis of players out on the field every single week.
Not only that, but you have to be able to talk about and know every player’s history, what their coaches are saying about them, what their GMs think about them, what their teammates think about them.
TV analysts get unprecedented inside access to NFL teams every single week, and not many people really know about that. Lynch’s background in TV made him a fascinating pick for GM for the simple fact that he had a beat on every team in the league and a bird’s eye view of the NFL for a number of years, watching tendencies, how teams were built, how coaches and GMs think, etc.
Lynch’s top three moves as GM…so far
There’s no question that what Lynch inherited in 2017 from the 49ers was an absolute mess. Perhaps that was part of the reason they were able to take the kind of risk on him that they did, and other teams in the NFL have since followed suit (hello, Raiders).
So what are Lynch’s top three moves in the first four years of his tenure with the Niners as GM?
Let’s break them down.