John Lynch Thinks He’s Having a Good Offseason
Most reasonable people would agree the 49ers haven't accomplished any of their main objectives this offseason.
They haven't extended Deebo Samuel's contract.
They haven't traded Jimmy Garoppolo.
They haven't used the cap space they could create simply by getting rid of Garoppolo.
Which means the 49ers haven't had a good offseason, right?
John Lynch disagrees.
"I think that's the noise that's out there," Lynch said. "We feel really good about our offseason. We took a hard look at our roster and said, ‘where do we need to be better?’ And we think we've addressed those areas. I think a common theme was we wanted to be better, holistically, on special teams, but we never just want to have special teams players. We want guys that are fits into our offense or defense. And I think Ray-Ray McCloud is a perfect example of that, Oren Burks is a perfect example of that. A very good special teams player, but also a very capable linebacker who provides depth. I think George Odum is another example, a guy who started meaningful games for the Colts last year and played at and what we thought was a really high-level at safety, but this guy's an all-pro special teams player as well. You add a guy like Kemoko Turay late, he's got very good rush skills and we feel like he can thrive in our system. And we like a lot of what I did, Charvarius Ward, that was our number one goal to add a top-flight corner that can match up with the top receivers in this league. And man, I can't tell you how excited we are about Charvarius.
"And so, I mentioned before, and I think a lot of people see that correlation between the money that Jimmy is due and that is somehow prohibiting us from doing what we wanted to do, that wasn't the case. We had a plan, we've been very aggressive, top five, top ten team in terms of cash. And we've had the pedal down for five years. It was time to probably, on the whole, take a step back in terms of the amount of cash and cap we were spending. And so that was planned all along. And still, I think despite those kinds of challenges we were able to have, what I believe, is a really productive offseason. And I'm really excited with where our team's at.”
Let's summarize what Lynch really said:
1. The 49ers may not have had a great offseason, but they did what they wanted to.
2. What they wanted to do was improve special teams and decrease spending because they spent a lot the past five years and needed to dial that back.
What an odd year to spend less, considering they just went to the NFC Championship. You'd think they'd want to spend more this year and actually win the Super Bowl.
Strange.
