San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York is certainly sticking to his talking points. York attended Saturday’s NFL Honors program, and while walking down the pre-event red carpet, he told ESPN’s Nick Wagoner that the 49ers are trying to, “re-establish our culture and we want to be at a championship level.”
The 49ers have hired general manager John Lynch, but cannot formally hire Kyle Shanahan until after the Super Bowl concludes. In discussing the recent changes, York played it safe to avoid any potential tampering charges.
"I hate the term rebuilding because it gives people a built in excuse," York said. "What we're trying to do is re-establish our culture and we want to be at a championship level. John Lynch brings that. You can certainly guess as to who the new head coach is going to be but we certainly believe that the new head coach will bring a legacy of the 49ers, a legacy of great football knowledge and those two should be able to work together in a way that we should have a long run of success. That, to me, is the biggest thing. I don't care about going from 2-14 to whatever the record is this year. I care about 20 years from now when we look back, what did we do together, what did we accomplish over that period of time."
The 49ers will likely announce Shanahan as their next head coach Monday morning. That will be followed by a formal press conference, likely with John Lynch up on stage as well. I imagine Lynch and Shanahan will do most of the speaking, but we might as well set the total early on mentions of culture between the three men. In his January press conference, York used the word “culture” 16 times. I would be surprised if it went that high again, so maybe we set the total at 14.5. Do you think it goes OVER or UNDER?