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John Lynch on Jamal Adams: "Of course you'd be Interested."

John Lynch is a man of integrity.
Grant Cohn|
John Lynch on Jamal Adams: "Of course you'd be Interested."
John Lynch on Jamal Adams: "Of course you'd be Interested."

John Lynch is a man of integrity.

On Monday, the 49ers general manager gave a brief, one-sentence statement saying he “never made a call” about trading for All Pro safety Jamal Adams. A statement which created the impression the 49ers weren’t ever interested in the best strong safety in the NFL, which would have been absurd, considering Adams was interested in playing for them.

On Tuesday, Lynch went on KNBR in San Francisco to clarify his statement and answer follow-up questions, because he genuinely wants to be as truthful as possible. He didn’t leave a cushy job at Fox to become a liar for the 49ers.

Here what Lynch said: “Were we interested? Of course you’d be interested in a player like that. Is it a reality? No. Kyle (Shanahan) and I always have conversations. Is this something we should pursue? Then you start looking into it. And the way we’re built, we’re getting up there against the cap, the things we have planned for the future, what’s happening with the pandemic to the cap, that just wasn’t a reality for us. It wouldn’t be No. 1 on our list to see the Seahawks get him, but there he is.”

Here’s how I interpret Lynch’s explanation:

One: He clearly isn’t happy the Seahawks got Adams, even if they might have overpaid for him. I’m guessing the 49ers were shocked when they learned the Seahawks got him.

Two: Lynch was honest and acknowledged that there was mutual interest between the 49ers and Adams at one time, which I reported when I said a trade between the two sides was “picking up steam.” Lynch also said the 49ers started looking into trading for Adams, and determined he was too expensive.

Fair enough.

When the 49ers initially considered trading for Adams, they thought the salary cap would drop in 2020 and 2021, then rise again big time in 2022. But this past week, the NFL and NFLPA agreed the loss of revenue will affect the next five salary caps, not just the next two. So the cap won’t go up drastically again for half a decade, and so the 49ers decided they couldn’t afford Adams.

Fair enough.

I always appreciate Lynch’s honesty and candor. He should speak more often.

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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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