Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com ranked the top 25 general managers in the NFL. Due to some fresh faces, Rosenthal elected not to rank every team in the NFL. It didn’t take long to get to San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch. He came in at No. 22 on the list. Here’s what was said about him:
Two years of the John Lynch experience in San Francisco has contained a lot of swings and a lot of foul balls, if not outright misses. This ranking admittedly might be different if Jimmy Garoppolo hadn’t been hurt last year, but the 49ers’ defensive struggles remain more on the front office. Lynch’s first two draft picks ( Solomon Thomas and Reuben Foster) haven’t worked out for different reasons, although Thomas still has a chance to become a more consistent contributor. Lynch suffers in these rankings for the same reason Chris Ballard succeeds: With a limited sample size, every draft class and free agency period counts.
I think it’s fair to mention foul balls here. It’s tough to truly judge Dante Pettis because he didn’t get an entire season with Garoppolo. We’ve seen the good Garoppolo can do, now we just need to see it for a full season.
I don’t think anyone would argue that we would have liked to see more out of Thomas. Mike McGlinchey was a good pick, but there were quite a few impact players that were rookies last year. Should Lynch be penalized for that? That is also tough, as we don’t know if those players would flourish in different scenarios.
I don’t think Lynch gets enough credit for here for George Kittle, Matt Brieda, or Richard Sherman. They also have a starting guard in Laken Tomlinson, and got a 1,000 yard season out of Marquise Goodwin. I know it’s easy to just look at the top picks and judge, but if you’re going to judge on sample size, you have to dig a little deeper.
Should Lynch be listed higher?
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