Lynch said, “Thank god for Mr. Irrevelant.”
For the first time since 2021, the San Francisco 49ers have a draft pick in the first round. That year, of course, was when the Niners brass made the decision to mortgage multiple first-round picks to move up for one of the top quarterbacks in the draft.
General manager John Lynch was asked to reflect on that decision a few years removed and how he views it:
“I think first of all, we have an ownership that’s very supportive and they support us greatly. Jed, John, Denise, Jenna, Mara [York] they believe in [head coach] Kyle [Shanahan] and I and our leadership. And they believe when we think something’s going to make us better, they say, go for it. And they don’t give us a lot of restrictions there and that’s comforting to know we can go be bold and do things like that. And yeah, we gave up a lot. We did it for reasons that we had and motivations and it didn’t work out.”
At the time, the consensus was Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence was a cut above everybody else. But after that, you could make an argument for any of the other four quarterbacks projected to go in the first round.
The 49ers went with the least experienced, highest ceiling. Lance had a rocket arm and could run, but also played in a pro-style offense. A preseason injury, a veteran quarterback, and an in-season injury prevented Trey Lance from getting to learn on the fly like his other counterparts in the 2021 NFL Draft.
Plus, the last pick in the draft:
“But thank God for Mr. Irrelevant [laughter]. He helped us. And I always am careful of this because Trey Lance’s story hasn’t been written yet. He’s in Dallas right now and I still think Trey’s got good football in him. We’ll see. That will play out. But I think also the freedom when you’ve done something and you feel like maybe it can improve us to move on, we aren’t beholden to, well we drafted the guy, we’ve just got to stick it out. We can do the things we want to do.
And I think that’s served us well and people can comment on the thought process that went into it. We certainly study it, say what went right, what went wrong, and we do that with all our picks. But I think we’re in a real good place as a football team, as an organization, and we’ve got to find a way to get a little bit better. And that’s the focus of this whole off season. And this draft is an awesome opportunity to do just that.”
One of this regime’s greatest strengths is understanding when they can’t squeeze any more value out of a player. Lance, Ty Davis-Price, and Trey Sermon are each examples from recent drafts. You can go back a few years and point out Dante Pettis, who was a second-rounder.
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