The San Francisco 49ers announced on Sunday January 29 that they had hired John Lynch to be their next general manager. The move caught all of us by surprise as we had not heard Lynch was a candidate, and he has spent his adult life either playing football or working as a broadcaster. It was the proverbial outside the box hiring that comes with both positives and negatives.
When the 49ers formally announced the decision, I posted a poll asking for people to rate the hiring on a scale of 1-to-10. The results were not overly surprising. You can head over to that link to see the full results, but it was a broad mix of opinions. “5” led the way with 19.34 percent of the votes. “7” got 15.25 percent, and was followed by “1” at 12.52” percent.
The order of results was 5, 7, 1, 8, 6, 3, 10, 4, 2, 9. With that 19.34 percent the highest total, it shows just how little people could make of the move. And it was understandable considering he has no experience as a GM.
It has now been 72 hours since the 49ers made the hiring. We’ve heard from Lynch in a conference call, and his Wednesday KNBR conversation. And of course, we know he has hired Adam Peters to serve as Vice President of Player Personnel.
Lynch remains a significant question mark, but we are slowly adding context. With that in mind, I thought I would post this poll once again. If your vote is the same, no problem. If your vote is different, let us know why in the comments.