Walking through all of the moves the 49ers have made during John Lynch’s tenure to decide how he’s doing at his job
Looking back at a roster bereft of talent in March 2017, general manager John Lynch has transformed the San Francisco 49ers into perennial playoff contenders.
Like most teams, some of those decisions have been doubles off the wall, and the others were swings and misses. An aggressive annual approach to reshaping the roster has allowed the team to remain competitive despite stepping to the plate with no outs and the bases loaded.
The dark cloud known as the 2017 NFL Draft will forever follow Lynch. To his credit, Lynch’s philosophy has been consistent. They were going to win defensively with athleticism and aggression, while the hotshot offensive guru Kyle Shanahan manufactured offense. Build the defense up first, and the offense will slowly follow.
That led the 49ers to use the No. 3 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft on an uber athlete who split time at defensive tackle and on the edge in college. The 49ers took the same approach heading into the 2025 NFL Draft.
Solomon Thomas was a third-team All-American, but I’d argue that his box scores and collegiate stats were full of fluff, whereas how Mykel Williams wins is more transferrable. Oh, and in 2025, the 49ers know who their quarterback is because they just built a roster with one good enough to make multiple Super Bowl appearances while he was on a rookie contract.
That was not the case when Lynch and Shanahan were handed the reins back in 2017. Hindsight doesn’t help the Niners, as teams are over-drafting quarterbacks in today’s game and have been for a few years; knowing a QB on a rookie contract is the quickest way to rebuild because you have financial flexibility.
In a final ESPN mock draft, Nick Wagoner said, “The bet here is they will wait on finding their quarterback,” and “Thomas doesn’t fill the Niners’ biggest need as an edge rusher, but he’s a safe pick who can bolster the league’s worst run defense.”
Throughout the draft process, neither Patrick Mahomes nor Deshaun Watson were considered “top” prospects. DeShone Kizer was the only quarterback to go in the second round. The Niners didn’t pull the trigger on a quarterback until their second pick in the third round, Iowa’s C.J. Beathard.
The 49ers get a golf clap for picking up an extra third-round pick (Ahkello Witherspoon), a fourth (Joe Williams), and a 2018 third-rounder (Fred Warner). Despite ending up with the best off-ball linebacker of the previous decade, you have to come away with more from a draft when you have two first-round picks than what the Niners did. And that’s someone who, to this day, would have co-signed any team willing to take a swing on Reuben Foster.
Instead of being wrong about a quarterback, the 49ers were wrong about a defensive lineman. That’s why the dark cloud of the ‘17 draft will forever loom over Lynch’s head, even if it produced one of the most productive players in franchise history.
Dwelling on the past and playing the “What if” game undersells how the 49ers organization has rebounded from multiple moves most would agree were mistakes. Ultimately, they’ve had the draft capital during the duration of this regime to build a powerhouse. We saw all of the pieces come together from 2022 through the 2023 season.
I believe they overachieved in 2019. Despite having a lead in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, they were fortunate that year in both the regular and postseason. However, that is the season where Lynch’s aggression came to fruition.
Trading for Dee Ford. Signing Kwon Alexander. A midseason acquisition of Emmanuel Sanders. Sandwiched between those moves was the draft that gave San Francisco an identity. Nick Bosa, Deebo Samuel, and Dre Greenlaw would all go on to become some of the most important pieces on the team.
The plan was to build around quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, which led to the drafting of Mike McGlinchey in the first round of the 2018 draft. Reading that sentence out loud today might make you pull your hair out, and that’s before we add that Jimmy’s “first” Deebo was Dante Pettis.
By the time the 2020 regular season had rolled around, the Niners had drafted Garoppolo, another receiver, this time in the first round. With their initial first-round draft pick, the team replaced DeForest Buckner with a defensive tackle with medical concerns.
Mind you, the prized signing of Weston Richburg in free agency was still on the PUP list, so the center position was still up in the air. Luckily, the 49ers got away with highway robbery when they traded for Trent Williams. Again, the more bites at the apple you give yourself, the more opportunities you’ll have to be successful.
An injury-riddled season at quarterback led the 49ers to make a franchise-altering decision in the 2021 NFL Draft. They traded up to No. 3 for a quarterback by parting ways with multiple future first-round picks for Trey Lance.
Doing so meant the cupboard would be dry when filling out your roster moving forward. It would also put an immense amount of pressure on a player with little to no experience. The plan to sprinkle in Lance in Week 1 might work. Lance threw a touchdown in the red zone in Week 1, but we would no longer see him in that role.
Not getting any production from Trey Sermon hurt. The next year, San Francisco could not have done worse with Drake Jackson, Ty Davis-Price, and Danny Gray in the 2022 NFL Draft. The football gods blessed the Niners by gifting them Brock Purdy.
Ji’Ayir Brown is penciled in as a starter, but he has not impressed many fans. Brown and Dee Winters are the players to contribute from the 2023 NFL Draft—one that will always be remembered as the draft in which the 49ers took a kicker in the third round. That move has overshadowed tight end Cameron Latu, who is unplayable and will not last on the roster beyond a year.
We’ve seen different types of players cycle through the defensive line. This past draft is who the 49ers want to be upfront at their core. The 2024 class has comfortably been the best Lynch has had since 2019. It produced multiple sustainable starters. We will find out if 2024 and 2025 will be enough to offset the other blimps on the 49ers path to a Super Bowl.
We’ve walked through how the roster has gotten to this point. Do you approve of what John Lynch has done during his tenure? He’s been aggressive and even consistent. He’s fared well, but good has not been good enough. Luckily for Lynch, there’s still time for him to change his fortune. Scroll down and let us know how you feel about Lynch’s time as a general manager for the Niners.