This is about a dead issue.
What a week this was. The 2019 NFL Draft wasn’t even over and a Bleacher Report article said there was friction between Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch. Then it got shot down. Fast. First Kyle Shanahan tore it apart with two words and now John Lynch has the same response.
Shortly after the report, Kyle Shanahan tweeted to Matt Maiocco that the report was, “complete B.S.” and except he spelled out the latter of those two words. John Lynch joined The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami on his TK Show podcast:
“I think Kyle summed it up as succinctly as you can when you respond, “Complete B.S.” I would just add, “Complete and utter.” Because, listen, if people want to speak to the effectiveness or the quality of our draft picks, everyone is entitled to an opinion, to their opinion, but this is the one thing, Kyle and I came in this together. I had a good gig doing broadcasting. I didn’t need to leave. And I came in because I wanted to work with someone. He was looking for someone to work with. We talked long before we did it. Not long, because it happened fairly quickly, but what we talked about we’re in this together—win or lose. That’s stronger today than it’s ever been. So when reports come out like that, you don’t pay any attention to it, but then it becomes a big deal. I think it’s a little sensitive, because there’s a history that we know about prior to us being here. It’s really a strength. There’s people in this building who say they’ve never seen a head coach and G.M. work so well. I think the truth will set you free. We know what the truth is, and we’re very proud of what we’ve done with this team in three years. We understand better than anyone that you gotta go do it on the field. So what is this? It’s Year 3. People are looking for things and we’re very confident—as I’ve said—with the way we’ve grown this team, and we understand full-well that this is a production-based business. Now we gotta go win.”
The entire podcast is worth a listen as Lynch goes into detail about the draft of Nick Bosa, and how he works with Shanahan on/off the field.
But The TK Show wasn’t Lynch’s only appearance. He also was on 95.7 The Game to echo the same sentiments:
“It’s nonsense. Look, I’m a big boy, Kyle’s a big boy. People can talk about a lot of things; whether they like our pick. People can say, “Hey, you guys are dumb for taking a punter in the fourth round.” We’ve got big shoulders. We’re going to do what we think is right for this organization. We’re proud of what we’ve done. But the notion that we’re not working together couldn’t be further from the truth. We have a tremendous working relationship. We’re great friends off the field. There’s a lot of trust. We came in this together. We came in knowing there would be some tough times, and that it wasn’t going to be easy, but it was going to be worth it.
”I can tell Niner fans that we’re strong as ever, and there’s a lot of trust and faith. I feel so great for this organization that they’ve got Kyle Shanahan, a tremendous leader, tremendous mind. Our players love him, I love him. We’ve got each other’s back, and that’s all that I’ll say on that because that’s just the truth.”
Well, that’s about as thorough as you can get. I don’t really want to repeat myself on this, but the thing to take away is no one is really indicating that any sort of break-up or friction is going on. Again, Jim Harbaugh and Trent Baalke were denying reports themselves and the reports were just as sudden as this. The key difference is, you didn’t see this sincerity, or this sort of quick denial during the Baalke/Harbaugh feud.
But as I said before, what you want to believe is up to you.
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