49ers GM John Lynch believes the team has the right mindset
San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch appeared on KNBR Friday morning. He used his playing experience as an example of why his team will continue to play hard during these final two games.
If you’re old enough to remember how the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were during Lynch’s early playing days, you’re aware that the postseason was not a staple for the franchise. Lynch only made the playoffs once during his rookie contract.
Here’s Lynch discussing the mindset of a player still playing despite not having a chance to play in the postseason:
This is what I do. This is what I’m paid to do. And forget about playing. You get an opportunity to go out there, an opportunity that so many people would love to have, and go out there and play. That’s what we do.
And so, there’s so much to play for. At times, you do have to make decisions if a guy is nicked or whatnot. Absolutely, but that’s on the team. But for the players, I hate the fact that, in today’s world, they’re asked those questions because I was like, “It’s just what you did.
Lynch believes the 49ers will continue to play for the players next to them:
“I believe we’ve got the right mindset and the right type of guys who believe that that’s what they do. And sometimes, certain situations, and injuries can prevent them from doing that. But absolutely, you take any opportunity to go out there and hone your craft, play for the guy next to you, have your buddy’s back. All those things is why you play.”
The 49ers are currently in foreign territory. This team has consistently competed for the Super Bowl, so we’ve come to expect them to waltz their way into the playoffs and make a deep run.
But injuries more than took a toll on the roster, and 2024 feels a lot like 2020. You can only say “next man up” so many times. Still, Lynch doesn’t believe it’s as simple as blaming injuries for the 49ers failures this season. He owns it and will look to find the root of the issue:
“It’s not somewhere where we want to be again, but we’re here this year. Can’t believe we’re here, but we are. And we have to accept that. We have to learn from it. We can’t just chalk it up to there were a lot of injuries. We’ll, the team we’re playing, Detroit, they had a lot of injuries, but found a way.
And so we’ve got to look at the root. We have been looking at the root causes. We’ll fix it. We’ve got a lot of great players and a lot of great people that we want to be a part of the solution moving forward, and we’ll go find the other parts of our team to get us back to where we belong. And that’s competing for championships, and I’m confident in our plan to do that.”
Much was made of this being “The Last Ride” for this iteration of the Niners leading up to 2024. There will inevitably be roster turnover that happens every year, but the core players remain, and looking at the landscape of the NFC, the 49ers aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.