Those of you wanting a new general manager for the San Francisco 49ers may have a rumor contributing to that wish.
Niners Nation alum Rob Guerrera hosts The Gold Standard podcast and had Bay Area sports columnist Dieter Kurtenbach as a guest. The topic turned to the 49ers front office with Guerrera saying, “Let somebody else shop for the groceries.”
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“There has been conversation about that,” Kurtenbach answered.
“Significant conversation?” Guerrera asked.
“Not enough to where it’s actually happening…”
Kurtenbach went on to say that if a hire made in that context in the next couple of weeks, “wouldn’t shock him.”
Hoo boy. It must be a 49ers offseason. Except this isn’t exactly fuel for a fire. Just a sports writer saying that the office of a football team had a conversation about changing things up slightly.
So first things first. Nothing has indicated the 49ers are dissatisfied with the current pecking order of John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan, who report to Jed York—and Kurtenbach isn’t saying that either. He’s only saying there are conversations about a possible role between John Lynch as president of football operations and Kyle Shanahan as head coach. And the conversations are just that: conversations, but nothing significant. If a new role were created, it wouldn’t be surprising. It’s not a conversation about firing Lynch, demoting him, etc., though it remains to be seen what role Lynch would have in this org structure.
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It seems it’s just keeping him as the president while hiring a general manager in full title, and Shanahan, as Kurtenbach says, remains the most important voice in the room.
Removing John Lynch from the 49ers entirely would be ill-advised—and there’s been nothing to suggest that, either in this conversation or otherwise. He’s an NFL veteran and an excellent face of the franchise for the 49ers. That said, maybe getting a true general manager between him and Shanahan would help with the responsibilities.
There’s nothing here indicating there’s friction between the two, either. So those of you who want to bring that old friction report up during the duo’s first year can find something else to right-click on. This sounds like the 49ers want to put someone under Lynch that could complement the current org structure. Possibly someone as a true general manager, while Lynch handles… well, whatever John Lynch would handle if he’s not in the GM role.
Which is kind of the question mark: what would Lynch be doing with the 49ers should this happen? Would he go along with this? Was it his idea? For now, it’s just a conversation.
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I’m sure we can speculate and overanalyse all we want. From what is happening now, it seems like it was brought up and discussed about a particular person, and that may be it.
Or maybe we’re in for a big change in the front office. John Lynch will address the media at the NFL Scouting Combine, which is coming up soon. Questions about this are bound to come up, or maybe there’s an announcement before a question can come, who knows.
Do you think a change is coming?
