John Lynch has now seen the top four quarterbacks in the upcoming draft in person.
On Friday the 49ers general manager was at Texas Tech’s pro day to watch quarterback Patrick Mahomes work out. Mahomes may be the most physically gifted of the draft’s top passers, and he had eye-popping numbers – 5,052 passing yards and 41 touchdowns – last season.
Those gaudy statistics, however, must be weighed against the Red Raiders’ spread-style passing attack, which annually creates prolific numbers but not necessarily NFL-caliber quarterbacks.
“I just show them my knowledge for the game,” Mahomes said at the scouting combine earlier in March when asked if he is battling the notion he is merely a product of Texas Tech’s system.
“That’s the only way I can prove it wrong,” he said. “You look back at the system quarterback – a lot of guys didn’t work out. So for me, it’s just going to be about proving those guys wrong, going out there and really showing my knowledge of the game and just competing.”
Like former 49ers starter Colin Kaepernick, Mahomes was a pitcher and is the son of Pat Mahomes, 46, who pitched for the Minnesota Twins, Boston Red Sox and New York Mets among other major league teams. Patrick Mahomes and Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer may have the most powerful arms in this year’s draft class.
Mahomes also was good at improvising at Texas Tech, rushing for 212 yards last year and scoring 12 additional touchdowns on the ground.
According to former NFL general manager Charley Cassserly, who now works for the NFL Network, some teams rate Mahomes as the best quarterback in this year’s draft.
Lynch and the 49ers met with Mahomes at the combine. Lynch also watched Kizer, Clemson’s Deshaun Watson and North Carolina’s Mitch Trubisky throw last week.
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