FIRE JOHN LYNCH!! $HITE DRAFTS, overmatched (Press-Democrat)

How much credit does GM John Lynch get for the 49ers performance this year?
My bias is to give the coach the credit to the coach for the environment and culture that leads to on-field energy and intensity. A good GM who is on the same page for player acquisition certainly is a key part of creating that environment.

As a 49er-ignorant Seahawks fan, I mostly know only what I see on the field, when it comes to the 49ers. The 49ers team I've see on the field is a hard-nosed, smash-mouth football team that brings that energy to the field every single game this year, even in their 2 losses. As a coaching geek, I am a big fan of Mike Shanahan and what he created with the Broncos. I'm assuming Kyle has had a lot of coaching and football philosophy influence from his dad.

It was firmly suggested to me by another Seahawks fan poster, whose opinions I thoroughly respect, that John Lynch is the power behind the throne in bringing that physical style of play, energy, and attitude to SF.

I also ran across this year+ old "Vote of Confidence" for Lynch:
the verdict is in, from the SF area media: FIRE JOHN LYNCH.
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/sports/90 ... hn?sba=AAS
"Fire John Lynch. Fire him in a month. Fire him next Tuesday. Doesn’t matter. Just fire him soon and hire a new general manager, someone with experience. Someone who knows what he’s doing."

I'm curious how 49er fans see it.
* "All Hail Kyle Shanahan, Lynch is just a guy." (as GM) or,
* "Shanahan's OK, but Lynch has brought the toughness and physicality and attitude back to the 49ers".

Niner fans, which is it? And apart from the physicality of play, is Lynch a good GM or crappy GM overall?
Does Lynch as GM make you daydream, "If only Baalke were still here!"

EXCERPTS FROM OTHER (SAINTS-RELATED) THREAD DISCUSSION
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Mad Dog":34xqq4ry said:

The thing about beating the Niners is you have to match their intensity and toughness. They will come at you fast and hard and if you aren't ready it can overwhelm teams. GB just got totally smoked because they couldn't rise to that level.

The two losses by the Niners looked like an all out war. Baltimore and Seattle matched them and it was some heavy weight slugfests.

NO has no chance if they don't come out with that mindset. SF will punch teams right in the mouth and watch their knees buckle. Better be prepared to swing back.

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olyfan63":34xqq4ry said:

chris98251":34xqq4ry said:

olyfan63":34xqq4ry said:

Nice post and great description Mad Dog. That sure matches what I've seen.
And the 49ers are *consistent* in bringing that energy, every game, all the time.
I saw it last year at the end of the season too, in that road game at Levis.
Seems to be an effect of Shanahan's coaching and culture.

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Not Shanahans, Lynch, if you seen him play much as part of the Bucs and then Denver that was a hallmark of how they played physical and punch you and keep punching.

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I'm also giving Kyle some implicit credit for his dad Mike's way of playing. Terrell Davis, remember him? Remember the smash-mouth running game Broncos teams that finally won 2 Super Bowls at the end of John Elway's career?

As far as John Lynch as 49ers GM, the verdict is in, from the SF area media: FIRE JOHN LYNCH.
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/sports/90 ... hn?sba=AAS
"Fire John Lynch. Fire him in a month. Fire him next Tuesday. Doesn’t matter. Just fire him soon and hire a new general manager, someone with experience. Someone who knows what he’s doing."

I do absolutely grant your point about John Lynch the player. Certainly as part of that Tampa D. And I think it's fair, by extension, to say that when Coach Kyle Shanahan asks GM John Lynch to go get him some tough, physical football players, GM Lynch is going to be all-in on getting Shanahan the type of players he asks for.

Might be that KS/JL are a hand-in-glove team like PC/JS. That would suck; I don't have the capability, however, to drive a wedge or poison that KS/JL relationship, so I hope they can do that on their own. The Press-Democrat article above did seem like a promising start, though. The article says his drafts have sucked, that they had horrible drafts in 2017 and 2018. I'll pose this one to our 49er fans and ask how they see it.

My bias is to give the coach the credit to the coach for the environment and culture that leads to on-field energy and intensity. A good GM who is on the same page for player acquisition certainly is a key part of creating that environment.

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He is 10 - 2. We lost 2 games by a combined total of 6 points. So we are 6 points away from 12 - 0. Is it really that bad? Nobody expected to be this good this year. Why would we fire him? You should see some of the previous "GM's" we had in there over the recent years if you can even call them an "NFL GM." They were in name only. This is moving in the right direction and if anything ahead of schedule. There is no reason to fire him. Probably give him a raise and an extension if anything. He has made some good draft picks which turned out really well, signed some key free agents, got rid of some dead weight and has the cap in good position for the future. Compared to what they had before over the years they would be crazy to fire him. There is no reason to do so.

*** Your article link says November 2018. It's December 2019. And a lot has changed since then. Period. ***

:|

SanDiego49er":36d7yahm said:

He is 10 - 2. We lost 2 games by a combined total of 6 points. So we are 6 points away from 12 - 0. Is it really that bad? Nobody expected to be this good this year. Why would we fire him? You should see some of the previous "GM's" we had in there over the recent years if you can even call them an "NFL GM." They were in name only. This is moving in the right direction and if anything ahead of schedule. There is no reason to fire him. Probably give him a raise and an extension if anything. He has made some good draft picks which turned out really well, signed some key free agents, got rid of some dead weight and has the cap in good position for the future. Compared to what they had before over the years they would be crazy to fire him. There is no reason to do so.

*** Your article link says November 2018. It's December 2019. And a lot has changed since then. Period. ***

:|

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Technically, you're 6 points from being 10-0-2. You're 8 points from being 12-0.

Lynch did the smart thing,he decided he was going to replicate the way the Seahawks were built and how they play their defense then did so. Announced as much publicly. That's gotta stick in at least some 9ers' fans' collective craw.

hawksfansinceday1":3pt9lufs said:

Lynch did the smart thing,he decided he was going to replicate the way the Seahawks were built and how they play their defense then did so. Announced as much publicly. That's gotta stick in at least some 9ers' fans' collective craw.

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That’s when their “selective memory” kicks in. 8)

Grant Cohn and his dad Lowell are the trolls of Bay Area sportswriters. What do they want, Baalke back? No one hates Lynch. It’s not even that they’re informed contrarians like say Kawakami. They spew things without backing them up.

Lowell used to be the most prominent sports columnist for the sf chronicle, seen as a score by the small press democrat. His kid only has that job as a legacy. No one in media quotes them b/c they’re both clowns.

For instance, I looked at his rant trashing the 2018 draft picks. Most of those guys have contributed this year. Baalke meanwhile was infamous for stacking picks on injured players. He was also excellent at antagonizing Harbs (not that Harbs didn't play a part), getting Tomsula and trying to fix it with Chip Kelly. JL on the other hand lets the coach do his job, and the coach has no interest in doing JL's.

If I had to criticize JL, it would be mainly over 1) the Robbie Gould extension and 2) his hesitancy to let go of high-round underperformers just because they were first or seconds.

Lynch was hired because York wanted Shanahan and Shanahan wanted Lynch. That's the beginning and end of it.

York agreed to Lynch because his job is to be a pretty face and to be someone who could speak to the media. At the time that was (believe it or not) of significant importance because the 9ers had been a PR disaster: Baalke treated the media like dirty, Tomsula was the joke of the league, Chip Kelly was dismissive at best, and the 9ers were still getting dunked on for having let Harbaugh go.

York needed someone who had a friendly relationship with the media, had gravitas and respect in NFL circles, and who could get through a press conference without scowling and rolling his eyes (Baalke), without condescending to people (Kelly), and without farting (Tomsula).

Lynch had no GM experience, but he was there to be a pretty face.

The actual GM work of being a GM beyond being the public face of the org has been split between Adam Peters (who does the pro-personnel side of the GM job) and Martin Mayhew (who does the draft personnel side of the GM job).

The 9ers draft picks and FAs have been -- like all teams -- pretty mixed, but overall very positive, as evidenced by their record and the depth of major contributions they're getting across the roster as as they've weathered a ton of injuries this year.

By all accounts (save for one fired scout) Lynch and Shanahan have a very good relationship too.

Where Lynch fails as a GM, I think, is in getting pushed around by Shanahan, but that was inevitable, and was part of his hiring. The evidence for this (in at least my read of it) was Peter Kings minute-by-minute reporting on the 9ers draft from two years ago.

While it is INCREDIBLY impressive that they've been able to turn around a mess of a roster in a few years, they were able to do so partially because they had high draft picks and an ton of cap room to play with. This will be the first offseason that they'll have neither of those things, so it will get tougher, but at the same time, they need MUCH, MUCH less than they've needed in the past.

I like your post, Popeye.

While the PR need was extant in 2017, I think now that Lynch is functioning less in that capacity now and more as a coordinator keeping all your said pieces above plus Jed/Denise working in tandem happily and quietly. He's rarely on KNBR or any other local media. I can recall only one time that TV cameras caught him on the field after a game.

The media is almost totally the purview of Shan, who is quite a PR maestro himself.

SantaClaraHawk":3otjptbj said:

I like your post, Popeye.

While the PR need was extant in 2017, I think now that Lynch is functioning less in that capacity now and more as a coordinator keeping all your said pieces above plus Jed/Denise working in tandem happily and quietly. He's rarely on KNBR or any other local media. I can recall only one time that TV cameras caught him on the field after a game.

The media is almost totally the purview of Shan, who is quite a PR maestro himself.

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Yeah, that's fair, and agreed, Lynch's job is more too coordinate all the people doing the work.

As for his presence during the season, I think save for Jerry Jones, for every teamt he GM is front and center for the offseason and the coach is front and center for the season. For that reason Lynch isn't front and center as much during the season, but he's still around MUCH, MUCH more than Baalke or Scottie ever were. He gets his few glamour shots in the press box each game, he does KNBR a couple times a month, etc. It's not a lot, but he's not invisible during the season the way that most GMs are.

It seemed starting 2014 Baalke was in the news a lot whether he showed up or not over the coaching carousel and then over all these "genius" picks he made that were too injured to show up and never did. There was a cascading effect with players showing up on the regular in TMZ and even his daughter getting involved with that "FIRE ROMAN" Tweet.

The fans were on fire like Redskins' fans are over Bruce Allen because he can't have a symbiotic relationship with anyone but the owner, and that's exactly why they're so angry. I think JL/KS both know they function best symbiotically, which will work as long as the team's doing well.

If however there's a downturn, they'll end up like Quinn/Patricia in DET and will probably both be gone, maybe after a bloody fight.

IMHO as a Hawks homer I do think they are a bit over rated...... but CURRENTLY they are 10-2 and having success.
No way in hell you make a change, the article as the OP said is over a year old.

Baalke (sp?) and Harbs were the invincible world beaters too in 2012, 2013 and then the wheels fell off.
The one big advantage Shanny has over Harbs is he isn’t as abrasive personality wise so likely will last longer.

I think we can really see Lynch's value when injuries happen. We've had a lot of injuries this year and for the most part the replacements have held up. Staley and McGlinchey and our swing tackle go down, Brunskill and Skule step up and perform well. Witherspoon goes down and Mosely steps in. Juice gets hurt and Dwelley does ok. Tartt broke his rib last game and Harris steps in and forces a fumble.

We made key FA acquisitions in Dee Ford and WR Emmanuel Sanders who are stepping in, they just need to stay healthy. Sherman is Sherman. Gould has been a great FA other than this year. Goodwin was good initially but now seems mentally distracted. RB McKinnon had a bad injury. Our FA Center is having a great year. Garapollo doesn't produce perfect stats but wins games.

Ward , Armstead, Buckner, Tartt were Baalke's picks and are finally healthy and playing.

In the draft Kittle is All pro quality, Witherspoon is very good, MCGlinchey is a great run blocker, Bosa is All Pro quality, Deebo is going to be a good WR, Fred Warner is Pro Bowl quality. Solomon Thomas was a miss, Rueben Foster was a miss and it looks like Dante Pettis was a miss. CJ Beathard was a miss but UDFA Mullens is a good back up.

I don't know we are 10-2 and were 4-12 last year. GM has to be doing something right

I wouldn't say Solly is blowing things outright. He's serviceable but has so much talent around him that he hasn't been expected to do much--but of course that could change at any time. Pettis' window has closed, Goodwin is likely relegated to ST as long as he lasts.

AFA CJB, Shanalynch likes them far more than even your normal QB2, and rather than give up on him, he's been quietly training as a PR/KR according to KS.

Sports Hernia":3cn6ux03 said:

IMHO as a Hawks homer I do think they are a bit over rated...... but CURRENTLY they are 10-2 and having success.

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December 8 2013, the 49ers beat a team by two points making them 11-2. They had a historically great pass defense and an upstart QB with a great running game. They still had a chance at home field throughout the playoffs but they were overrated.

:stirthepot: :stirthepot: :stirthepot:

94Smith":80trznml said:

Sports Hernia":80trznml said:

IMHO as a Hawks homer I do think they are a bit over rated...... but CURRENTLY they are 10-2 and having success.

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December 8 2013, the 49ers beat a team by two points making them 11-2. They had a historically great pass defense and an upstart QB with a great running game. They still had a chance at home field throughout the playoffs but they were overrated.

:stirthepot: :stirthepot: :stirthepot:

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I would take Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch over Jimmy G and your RB by committee every day of the week.

Maulbert":s6ob6l1u said:

94Smith":s6ob6l1u said:

Sports Hernia":s6ob6l1u said:

IMHO as a Hawks homer I do think they are a bit over rated...... but CURRENTLY they are 10-2 and having success.

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December 8 2013, the 49ers beat a team by two points making them 11-2. They had a historically great pass defense and an upstart QB with a great running game. They still had a chance at home field throughout the playoffs but they were overrated.

:stirthepot: :stirthepot: :stirthepot:

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I would take Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch over Jimmy G and your RB by committee every day of the week.

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Don't worry ,In 2013 I would have taken Kaepernick and Gore over Lynch and Wilson too...

I'm just saying you can call us overrated if you want but we're 10-2. Sometimes you can't see something until it smacks you in the face

Well then there was 1/19/2014. And in 2015 we crapped the bed too.

"Overrated" is always hindsight. I look back on that year and more than Kaep, I remember Dawson's leg icing so many close games. Too many, you could say. Just like you could say we've won by a couple plays or misses each game this year--absolutely true. No one can see the forest for the trees at this time of year. Zurlein and McLaughlin ice their kicks, we're fighting w/Rams for the WC, 49ers would have clinched, the convo would be entirely different.

94Smith":29ymcxp2 said:

I'm just saying you can call us overrated if you want but we're 10-2. Sometimes you can't see something until it smacks you in the face

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Popeyejones":29ymcxp2 said:

Lynch was hired because York wanted Shanahan and Shanahan wanted Lynch. That's the beginning and end of it.

York agreed to Lynch because his job is to be a pretty face and to be someone who could speak to the media. At the time that was (believe it or not) of significant importance because the 9ers had been a PR disaster: Baalke treated the media like dirty, Tomsula was the joke of the league, Chip Kelly was dismissive at best, and the 9ers were still getting dunked on for having let Harbaugh go.
-snip-
While it is INCREDIBLY impressive that they've been able to turn around a mess of a roster in a few years, they were able to do so partially because they had high draft picks and an ton of cap room to play with. This will be the first offseason that they'll have neither of those things, so it will get tougher, but at the same time, they need MUCH, MUCH less than they've needed in the past.

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SantaClaraHawk":29ymcxp2 said:

Grant Cohn and his dad Lowell are the trolls of Bay Area sportswriters. What do they want, Baalke back? No one hates Lynch. It’s not even that they’re informed contrarians like say Kawakami. They spew things without backing them up.

Lowell used to be the most prominent sports columnist for the sf chronicle, seen as a score by the small press democrat. His kid only has that job as a legacy. No one in media quotes them b/c they’re both clowns.

For instance, I looked at his rant trashing the 2018 draft picks. Most of those guys have contributed this year. Baalke meanwhile was infamous for stacking picks on injured players. He was also excellent at antagonizing Harbs (not that Harbs didn't play a part), getting Tomsula and trying to fix it with Chip Kelly. JL on the other hand lets the coach do his job, and the coach has no interest in doing JL's.
-snip-

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Overrated??!! This year the Niners are just TOUGH and PREPARED in *every* game. From my Hawks fan point of view, 49ers play this year is a logical extension of the game last year at Levis where Nick Mullens, 49ers D, and the refs beat the Seahawks. It was almost comical that every time a good Hawks play occurred, a ref pulled a game-changing flag out of their pocket, usually one that kept a Niners drive alive, or killed a Seahawks first down, and they were nearly all of the "subjective" variety, e.g., PI, OPI, marginal RTP, etc. Despite feeling jobbed, the Niners played hard, physical, and well, and Nick Mullens played an excellent game, unexpected for a supposed 3rd stringer, against us. That game was perhaps an overlooked preview of how the Niners would play this year, except now with Garoppolo back.

BTW, I knew that article from the Press-Democrat was a year+ old and much has changed; I chose it because it was one of the first ones that Google brought up, had a "dramatic" point of view, and because it listed the draft picks and identified blown picks. When I compared that list of draft picks to the players out on the field and playing well, most of the 1st rounders on the DL didn't seem to be on it. So it seemed that part had some modicum of validity. The Ruben Foster pick and ensuing drama... now that bit about expecting/demanding ShanaLynch to basically have him/his GF tailed by a PI, now that was some funny and dysfunctional schit! I have no idea how the Hawks are keeping tabs on Josh Gordon, but he's played in 3 games in a row now, so Carroll and Schneider must have something work. So far, anyway. Could change with tomorrow's headlines, but I don't think it will.

Thanks all for sharing the interesting info. The downside, as a Hawks fan, is it suggests your coaching will be top-notch, as long as Shanahan is there, and the Coach-GM relationship will be stable and productive, rather than dysfunctional. Shanahan > Tomsula, Lynch > Baalke. It's been great up here having the Carroll/Schneider/Wilson trio, despite our blown high draft picks (Malik McDowell, anyone?) The Niners franchise now seems to have a shot at that kind of ongoing success (again) for a few years. Up here, now we have to worry a bit about how much longer Carroll will stick around and who his successor will be.

SantaClaraHawk, when I read that bit you wrote about CJB, for a moment I wondered, "what the hell is ClipBoard Jesus" (Charlie Whitehurst) doing still in the NFL, and apparently, the Niner's 3rd string QB? Then I subdued my momentary dyslexia and figured out that must be CJ Beathard, who still sounds to me more like a Washington Redskins front office guy than a QB.

His frothing over the last 2017 picks made me LOL:

Round 6: Linebacker Pita Taumoepenu. Bust.

Round 7: Safety Adrian Colbert. Injured.

As of 11/20, here's what happened to them from Seahawks.com:

"Taumoepenu fills the Seahawks practice squad spot vacated by safety Adrian Colbert, who was signed to the Dolphins 53-man roster."