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49ers GM John Lynch Says His Heart Goes Out to Shedeur Sanders

The 2025 NFL Draft was a bizarre spectacle.
Grant Cohn|
Apr 4, 2025; Boulder, CO, USA; Colorado Buffaloes quarterback Shedeur Sanders (2) laughs during the University of Colorado NFL Showcase at the CU Indoor Practice Facility. Mandatory Credit: Michael Ciaglo-Imagn Images
Apr 4, 2025; Boulder, CO, USA; Colorado Buffaloes quarterback Shedeur Sanders (2) laughs during the University of Colorado NFL Showcase at the CU Indoor Practice Facility. Mandatory Credit: Michael Ciaglo-Imagn Images | Michael Ciaglo-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 2025 NFL Draft was a bizarre spectacle.

For five rounds, the story wasn't about the players who were drafted. It was about who wasn't drafted -- quarterback Shedeur Sanders. He was the No. 1 player ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr.'s big board and fell to Round 5 before getting picked by the Cleveland Browns. While Sanders was waiting, he cruelly got prank called by someone pretending to be an NFL general manager.

After the draft, 49ers general manager John Lynch offered Sanders some words of encouragement.

"There's a lot of time and we're all doing our work, but then you're sitting up there and this was a story that kind of was prevalent," Lynch said. "I think more than anything, just empathy, that's tough for a young man. But I know that he's a competitor. I know that he's got his opportunity now and I think we tell people all the time, it's not when you go, it's not where you go, it's what you do with that opportunity.

"He's got that opportunity in Cleveland and I'm excited for him. I remember seeing him down at Jackson State, his true freshman year, and really enjoying getting to know the kid. A lot of things are said about him, but now he gets to go prove that he's worthy of that pick by the Browns and we wish him nothing but the best."

What a classy thing for Lynch to say.

Clearly, the 49ers weren't interested in Sanders even though they were in the market for a quarterback -- they drafted Kurtis Rourke in Round 7. Maybe they feel that some of the things that have been said about Sanders -- he's entitled, for instance -- are true.

Or maybe they just don't want the media circus that follows him around.

Either way, the 49ers have their reasons. They don't need to say them publicly.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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