John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan are finishing year three of their dual six-year deals, but the 49ers are wasting no time in keeping them for the rest of the decade. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo report that the 49ers and the duo are looking to an extension for the offseason and indicated all parties “hope” it works out.
This is a no-brainer. The 49ers waited forever to keep Jim Harbaugh and he eventually “mutually parted ways” with the organization. If your head coach takes the worst roster in football and builds a Super Bowl-calibur team in three years, that means you take care of them. You see several coaches go to a Super Bowl in year 3, but few have had to build the roster to get there. Regardless of what happens today, if anyone watched 2019, you’d know this season was no fluke. Sure, the 49ers may not win the way they did in 2020, but they are set up for success and have a strong nucleus in place, something they didn’t have with Shanahan.
In the same article, they gave some context on how Lynch and Shanahan met and interviewed which is rather interesting:
A day later, the San Francisco brass flew to Atlanta to have a second interview with Shanahan — where he met with all four GM candidates. That’s where Lynch really distinguished himself. At one point, Marathe and York told all four GM candidates during the interview, We’re going to step out of the room so you and Shanahan can talk. Do it just the two of you so you can get on the same page. Three of the candidates agreed; not Lynch. He explained why to NFL.com.
”I kinda spoke up there,” Lynch said. “It was getting to where we were going to talk about who had the 53-man roster and all that stuff. Jed and Paraag understood the circumstances were different and we were just coming together and they said, ‘Why don’t we leave?’ I said, ‘Guys if this was going to work, we’re all going to be working together. So why don’t we all sit in here and talk about it together? We’re all going to be working together.’ So that’s what we did. Kyle said that sounds good to me and we just talked about it. There was alignment on that.”
Win or lose, Shanahan has not only been a heck of a coach, but a good face of the franchise. He’s not only brought a winning culture to San Francisco, but put good players in place that help the community. No one on this team has an ego or is bigger than another teammate. Unlike Harbaugh’s teams that had numerous character issues and incidents.
You do not let that walk away. No matter what happens. And Jed York knows what happens when you let this linger.