The 49ers on Saturday acknowledged they talked about trading tight end Vance McDonald over the last few days but did not end up moving the former second-round draft pick.
“I think that’s the reality of new regimes coming in,” general manager John Lynch said. “That’s not to say he can’t fit into our scheme. Frankly, we received some interest from some other people, and then we did explore some options throughout the league with Vance.”
Kyle Shanahan said he called McDonald Friday and the two exchanged texts.
“We’re all good,” he said. “We’re going to talk in person (Monday). We took over a 2-14 team. We need to get better in every aspect, and we’re going to try to in every aspect. It wasn’t just Vance. … We (talked about) Vance the most because a lot of people were interested in Vance. But we’re ready to do that with anybody. We’re going to try to improve our team in any way possible because we have a lot of work to do.”
McDonald signed a five-year contract extension in December worth has much as $35 million. He averaged more than 16 yards a reception last year and caught four touchdowns, one of them for 75 yards. But he has yet to play a full 16-game season since being taken in the second round in 2013.
McDonald and Logan Paulsen, a free-agent acquisition, lined up with the first-team offense during the team’s minicamp. The 49ers also have Garrett Celek, Je’Ron Hamm and Blake Bell at the position and added George Kittle out of Iowa in the fifth round on Saturday.
“It left me thinking because, I would say, a quarter of the teams called us wit various players that they’re trying to shop,” Lynch said. “It got me thinking how many times in my career I was shop and I never knew about it.”
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