After another disappointing loss for the San Francisco 49ers, where the defense allowed over 500 yards of offense for the second time this season, outside linebacker Aaron Lynch made some bold statements about the team. Surprisingly, they were bold statements in a positive light, discussing the level of talent on the team. This comes after the defense allowed it’s sixth straight 100-yard rusher, and a blown lead by the offense.
Lynch, who recorded his first sack of the season, spoke about consistency and a short memory of bad plays being a way for the 49ers to have some success.
Here’s the full transcript:
How did it feel to get the sack?
It’s always fun to play football, always fun to get a sack but I’m not here to get a sack, I’m here to win football games. [I’m] just trying to help this team do the best that we can each week. The sack was nice, it was fun, it’s always fun having fun with the guys but I wanna win games so I’m going to keep working harder and harder to win these games.
Have you ever been through a six game losing streak?
Yeah, in college.
How do you deal with it?
You just come to work everyday and you know, have high hopes and keep working hard. Nothing changes in your work ethic. We have the team. We possibly have one of the best teams in the NFL. Easily. Hands down. We just need to know how to keep finishing games and work together throughout the whole game. Once we get that down, nobody’s going to able to mess with us.
Why do you say have one of the best teams? Talent?
Yeah. We show it in the beginning of games. We just need to come out and finish the games. We have easily the best team in our conference, for sure, hands down. I’m not even going to think twice about that. I know we have the best team. We just have to come together and as one unit and once we do that we’ll be fine. It’s just the... turnovers, we gotta stop a few things there, and like I said we just gotta come together and not let this stuff get us down because once it starts getting us down, it’s like a ripple effect. Just gotta have high heads and keep going out there and playing ball.
How do you improve on consistency?
I think honestly it’s just a mindset. It’s what we went on this whole week, it’s just a mindset. You have to have that mindset where if something bad happens, you go to the next play no matter what. That’s how you get that done so, I don’t know but we’ll be okay. I’m not worried about that.
You think this team has the players. Is Jim O’Neil’s scheme bogging you down especially with the big plays?
No, no. Plays happen. Every team is good. They wouldn't be in the NFL if they weren’t good. We [got] the ball run on us a few times, it is what it is. You just go tot the next play. Jim O’Neil’s defense is perfect for our scheme. We got the guys on the inside to play on the inside, guys on the outside, we got DBs. We just all got to come together. Like I said, we have one bad play, go on to the next. That’s what we need to improve on.
Who brings this team together?
Everybody. It can’t be just one person. Everybody.
The one bad play carrying over, is that part of the problem?
I dot necessarily think it’s a problem or the whole thing but I mean, I don't know how the guys think. You know what I mean? I don’t know how to answer that because I don’t know how the other guys think, but that’s what we have to do. Just because they run for 40 yards doesn’t mean that we go out there down ourselves, you know what I mean? It is what it is.