The San Francisco 49ers are in the midst of figuring out the structure of their front office, and new GM John Lynch offered up some insight on Wednesday. Earlier in the day we wrote about how he confirmed he will report to Jed York and not Paraag Marathe. It was not a surprising revelation, but considering Marathe was part of the interview process, it was useful clarification.
Lynch spoke with KNBR and at one point was asked about what Marathe’s role will be. He talked about Marathe’s skills as a contract negotiator. He also briefly touched on analytics given that is something to which Marathe is notably connected. Lynch does not seem like one to push hard on the analytics, but he did acknowledge the organization would be foolish to ignore them, and they will embrace anything that helps them win.
Analytics have been a bone of contention for many folks in the NFL. While analytics are not the final answer to everything that helps create a winning team, there is value to considering them. Jim Harbaugh was an old school football type, but he was willing to consider anything that would help him win one more football game. Lynch strikes me as being in a similar mold.
Here is a transcript of that part of the interview. You can listen to the entire interview here.
Look, Paraag was part of the interview process. One thing that I think has always been a strength of mine, and I credit my parents, is they’ve always taught me, you’ve gotta know your history, you’ve gotta study. If I’m going to sit down with a prospective coach, I’ve gotta know his history. But I gotta make my own judgment. And I’ve always tried to do that.
I can tell you this, in my short time being around him, I think that Paraag is an unbelievable asset to me and to this organization. I understand that, somehow the narrative has been out there that he meddled, and all those things. All I know, for instance, one of my challenges early on is negotiating contracts. I haven’t done that a lot throughout my career, other than my own deals. Well, from what I understand, he’s one of the best in the league at it. So am I gonna lean on him for that? Absolutely. Are we gonna put some other people around? We’re working hard to do that.
People talk a lot about analytics and what role they play in football. I wanna explore that. I don’t think it’s gonna be a big part of what we do, but I think to ignore it would be foolish. Anything that can help us get better, I’m gonna embrace. So, that’s where we are. I can tell you thus far he has been a tremendous resource. And were those things discussed? Yes, they were, and I feel very good about it. I can just tell people that.