The San Francisco 49ers are looking forward to their first-round pick since the Trey Lance debacle of 2021.
The 49ers traded up to three to get Lance, but the story did not have a fairy take ending.
49ers GM John Lynch was introspective about the trade said he was happy with how the ownership backed himself and head coach Kyle Shanahan.
“I think, first of all, we have an ownership that"s very supportive, and they support us greatly," he said on the team"s official transcript.
“Jed, John, Denise, Jenna, Mara [York] they believe in Kyle 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.
“But thank God for Mr. Irrelevant."
Brock Purdy was signed as number 262 in the 2022 draft and has become Mr Irreplaceable leading his team to the Superbowl last season, a game that would go on to lose to the Chiefs.
“I always am careful of this because Trey Lance"s story hasn"t been written yet," Lynch said. “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."
With the luxury of a cheap, quality quarterback the front office has had a chance to build a top team including paying high salaries to the likes of Nick Bosa, Deebo Samuel, Trent Williams, Christian McCaffrey, Fred Warner and more.
“I think you"re always thinking about that position and to know we have an answer there and a really good one, that"s comforting," Lynch said. “It allows us just to go and build around him and make our team stronger. And I think very highly of our roster, what we have. I think it"s going to be hard for these young kids to come in and make a mark.
“But there"s good players, and that"s our job to find that because you have to have that. As many of our players as we"ve paid, you have to rely on rookie contracts. And so, we need to infuse all those things that I said earlier, and we need some players to come out of this draft because they"re going to be playing next year and into the future. And that opportunity"s there," he ended.
