Sourdough Sam
Well-known member
- Mar 20, 2019
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Opening comments:
General manager John Lynch: "Hey everybody. Look, we thought it'd be appropriate to start, there's one thing different here for us. Our first press conference without one (Philadelphia Eagles senior vice president of communications) Bob Lange here with us. On behalf of (head coach) Kyle (Shanahan) and our entire organization, just wanted to thank Bob. Bob had a unique opportunity to go home, be provided for him and his family and so we wish Bob and Rachael and their beautiful kids all our best as they move on in their next chapter and very thankful and grateful for everything Bob did for us. With that, not much else going on around here. So, we'll open it up for questions."
First question for you guys is who talked to quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo on Friday after the trade was made? What was the message delivered to him and how did he react?
JL: "I think the answer is that we both spoke to Jimmy. Kyle did right away and I did later in the day. I'll let Kyle go after this, but the message was what we were doing, why we were doing it and how he is very much still a part of our plans. I believe those conversations should remain private, but Jimmy, he welcomes competition. So, I'll leave it at that. Kyle, you go ahead."
Head coach Kyle Shanahan: "Yeah, very similar. Wanted to get it to Jimmy definitely before it came out. So, called him first thing, had a good conversation with him. Obviously, no one wants to hear that and I know that he wasn't totally excited about it, like you'd expect, but Jimmy handled it great like he always does. We were very straight up with each other and I told him how we felt. This doesn't change any of his circumstances right now. He's still coming in here trying to lead this team. I told him how excited I was that free agency went a lot better than we anticipated with being able to sign a lot more of our own players than we had thought going into it and that we've got a real good team coming back here and we still plan on him leading us and getting as far as we can with him."
I'm sure you saw yesterday that Peter King reported that you guys were likely to head to Tuscaloosa tomorrow for Alabama's pro day. Kyle, you've seldom been seen on the pro day circuit, so this seems like it's a big deal. A) is that right, are you going to Alabama? And B) what was the thought process on going there instead of Ohio State? Why not go to BYU or to North Dakota State, some of those other pro days?
KS: "Well, yeah, one, we have people at all the spots. A lot of people we trust and will be able to meet with here over the next month. I normally don't like to go to them a bunch unless I have to for some reason. I have also kind of grown up in the idea that you don't like to go everywhere and show people things. When you're sitting at 12 and stuff, I don't want to go to a bunch of quarterback pro days and things like that. Now that you move up to three, you don't have to hide as much. It's not as big of a deal to me as it might've been when we were sitting at 12. Also, Alabama's already had one. It's their second one and just talking with (former Ohio State QB Justin) Fields' agent and everything, we'll get another one from him, too. So, we'll be able to see him. That kind of made it an easy decision."
Kyle and John, this is for both of you, but Kyle, you just mentioned that your plans are to try to make a run at this thing this year. How much of this decision that you made and to hang onto Jimmy is driven by the fact that you believe you can compete this year, but also maybe concerns about his injury history?
KS: "I think we had to look at everything. You hope to be competing to get into the playoffs every single year, which is the ultimate deal to get you a chance at the Super Bowl. So, that's your goal every year. The more you look into this league, especially our four years here, it's very hard to succeed when your starting quarterback doesn't stay healthy or if you don't have one of those true starting quarterbacks. We've gotten that with Jimmy. He's played at a very high level when he's played. It's been tough, the two years he's missed. It's been hard to compete the same way, so we knew we had to look into that this year, I think, as everyone expected. You learn a lot about this stuff, you take into the salary cap, all the things that go on. We were hoping to get a younger guy in here eventually, and to look at this year to where we feel we had a chance to do it, we were excited about it. You're making those decisions and trying to plan it out. Also, at the same time, free agency's going on. So, you don't know exactly what type of team you're going to have through at all. I guess when the dust settles and we signed a bunch of our guys back and you feel you've got a team, does that change how you feel about going to get a rookie quarterback? It might a little bit, as far as that Week 1 or that season coming up, but as far as your whole organization, I think that's something we felt pretty strongly early on that if we could find the right guys, we'd like to get in that position to do that."
JL: "Yeah, I would echo what Kyle says. I think he said it well. The impetus for these conversations with some of the other teams we talked to about moving up, it really started out of a want at first. The NFL has set up that free agency comes first, then the draft. Well, it'd be nice to know for free agency, what are we dealing with? Nobody was ready to pull the trigger then. So, those first conversations happened early in March. But as free agency went, we started going through and we were happy with the results. We retained a lot of our key people. We added to it. Yeah, we felt like we have a team that can compete. At the same time, I think (president of 49ers enterprises and executive vice president of football operations) Paraag (Marathe), (vice president, football administration) Brian Hampton, that crew has done a tremendous job of leaving us some flexibility. We went to ownership and said, 'Hey, things are looking good. We'd like to make this move, but we also don't want to say goodbye to Jimmy. We think Jimmy, we've shown we can get to a Super Bowl with him. We can play at a high level and we don't think those two things have to be mutually exclusive.' So, the opportunity to trade up and possibly get a guy that can be a big part of our future and keep Jimmy, who we're very high on and I think some positive things are happening in this offseason for, that's kind of the plan we arrived at. We're very excited. It was a stated goal that we needed to come out with the quarterback position being stronger this year and I think we've put ourselves in an opportunity to make that happen with this move."
Could you maybe describe how strong a sense you have on what the top two picks are going to do? I don't know if you want to get into, just depicting what your top three options would be, or if you pinpointed one exactly?
JL: "Well, I think anytime you're projecting, it's just like you. We don't have intel on what's going on other than what's been out there. I think those two teams have been pretty forthright. (Jacksonville Jaguars head coach) Urban Meyer has been on record. They were obviously there watching (former Clemson QB) Trevor (Lawrence) at Clemson and who knows what happens with the Jets. I think ultimately the decision we made was, we were very comfortable with this group of players at the top of this draft. And, we felt like putting ourselves in position to get up to three, where we kind of controlled things, was something very attractive to us. We talked to a few teams and I think there was traction with Miami early. We just had really good dealings with them. Very appreciative to (Miami Dolphins general manager) Chris Grier, (Miami Dolphins head coach) Brian Flores, (Miami Dolphins owner) Stephen Ross, their owner. I think they were first-class this entire way and we were able to bring it to a close on Friday while we were up at BYU."
Just reading between the lines, it seems like you really do want to keep Jimmy Garoppolo, but if someone blew you away with a trade offer, you would have to consider that. I guess for starters, is that accurate?
KS: "Yeah, that's accurate with every player on our team. I mean, probably including myself. If someone blows us away with a trade for me, I bet you John would trade me. We're in a situation where when you bring in a rookie quarterback, to me, it's always better, especially on the team that you have, if you've got a veteran starter there already who you like and you're comfortable winning with. That's usually the direction you want to go and not throw someone else out into the fire until they're fully ready. That's the situation we're at. When you look at free agency, if it goes the other way around and you do things differently, maybe. But right now, it's going to be hard to find a quarterback that gives us a better chance to win than Jimmy, especially even a rookie in the draft. So, that's what you look into. Now, if someone wanted something for that and it can make your team better in a lot of other ways, you listen to that. But it also depends on how good you feel about that rookie. We're not there yet and odds are, we probably won't be. That's why we're happy that we don't have to be that way. We've got a guy in here who we know we can win with, a guy that our players love, that we love and we're excited to have him this year and we're excited to have a hell of a quarterback right behind him learning for when the time is his."
JL: "Agreed."
Not to get too dramatic, but decisions like this, franchises can reach great heights or fall to great depths. No one takes a quarterback at No. 3 and thinks he's going to fail. Everyone loves the quarterback they take at No. 3, but history shows that doesn't always work out. Do you have an appreciation or an excitement about taking a risk like this?
KS: "It's a risk every single year you go into an NFL season without one of those top five guys. It's very tough to win in this league and there's only a few quarterbacks that you're going to win because of just the quarterback. Very few. And even those guys still need a good team around them. So yeah, you've got to take risks. This is a risk we were willing to take. We looked at how our four years have gone. We looked at how we want the next four years to go and we'll look to where we're at in the draft and the options that are there. That's why I've been sitting and looking at this stuff since January and going all the way through the process. We felt pretty strongly we were going to get left at the altar sitting there at 12, the way that we think this draft is going to go and the way all these candidates are, and the way a lot of teams are in a position trying to take a risk to fill that need that I just said about. Almost every team's in that position except, I don't know, 10 of them. So yeah, it's a risk, but every season in this league is a risk."
JL: "I would just add to that, that of course, this was made with a lot of deliberation, a lot of study, a lot of opinions from multiple people and we ultimately arrived that we thought it was worth it. We also, I think, paid somewhat of a premium for doing it early and why was that important to us? Because, well, one thing I always remember (former San Francisco 49ers head coach) Bill Walsh, one thing he used to talk about a lot when I was at Stanford was you've got to beat your opponent to the punch. We felt like it was a matter of time before the first domino fell and we wanted to be a part of that. Once we decided this was something we wanted to do and might we pay a little bit of a premium for that? Yeah, but we felt like this was a priority. This was a priority for our football organization going forward. So, absolutely you understand, you study historically how things work, but we've got great confidence in this group of players that are up there. Now we hone in and continue to examine each and every guy that we have interest in at that spot and ultimately do our best to find the guy who's going to be a great part of this organization's future."
This is for Kyle, just given with former North Dakota State QB Trey Lance, he played in a pro-style system, but given he only had one game in 2020 and overall the sample is relatively small, how does that change the evaluation process from your standpoint? And a second question, is Chris Simms privy to your decision at number three?
KS: "Yeah. I tell him everything. No, I mean, it's always hard when a guy didn't play this year. Definitely. He played one game, so I don't think people are going to go a ton off of one game. You've got to go off his body of work and you've got to play the whole season before, so of course we'd all wish he could have had one. We wish [former BYU QB Zach] Wilson could have a full season, too. There's a lot of things that happened this year and we also wish we could go personally work out everybody. I wish I could go out to dinner with everybody. There's a lot of things that make it harder for everyone this year, but the draft's hard every year. So, I mean, if you look at it over history, 50-50 is pretty good. So, you throw in a lot more variables and it makes it harder, but is it going to make it worse than 50-50? I don't know, but one thing that I kind of liked with what we did, when you sit at 12 and everyone's talking about there's possibly five guys that could go around there and man, you can't work these guys out. You can't go out to dinner with them, but you've got to find out a lot more about these guys. How do you do that without tipping your hand off to everyone? And that was also one of the frustrating things to be sitting there like, man, we don't want to go try to see someone or do all this stuff or be Zooming all the time and now everyone knows how hard we're trying to do something. You get to three, you don't have to mess with that stuff and I think that gives us a better chance now to do our due diligence because we don't have to really play any games in that way."
I don't expect you to list out your preferences here, but is former Alabama QB Mac Jones in your mind worthy of that top echelon and is he somebody that you've liked for a while?
KS: "I just saw him in January for the first time, along with all these other guys. So, they've all been in that boat. I was joking, I didn't finish that answer to that last one on Chris, but trust me, Chris talks about everything. Therefore, I haven't been able to talk to him in a couple of years. Anyone who you're friends with who speaks in the media and people think you're friends with them, that means you're not allowed to tell them anything. That's why he doesn't even ask me stuff because if he does ask me something and I tell him, then he can't say it, but Chris does a good job with that stuff and I respect listening to him. That's why I always do listen to his opinions because he's not a guy who just calls people to get his opinions. Chris works at it. That's why he wanted to be a coach for a little bit, spending a year in New England and stuff. He didn't like the hours, I understand. But, he loves watching quarterbacks and doing that stuff. So, I always love to hear his evaluation. What was your question after that, because I cleared up that last one. Oh yeah, about Mac. You know, I can't answer exactly on that stuff, but the way we looked at it is, to move up to three, we had to feel good that there are three guys we'd be comfortable with leading our team for a long time. We couldn't make that decision before there were three guys, so we had to feel that way with three. Now, I think there's a chance to get there with four and five. There's a chance. There are five guys that are kind of at this party a little bit and people are talking about them going everywhere. They're all over in the first round. Our feeling is these guys are going to go a lot higher than people realize and when you have two guys sitting at one and two, could even possibly be three and four. Then you hear a lot of teams all the way through the draft who are in a situation where they really want a quarterback and they don't have someone close to what we have with Jimmy. It means those five guys are going to disappear pretty fast. So, we had to feel confident at three to make this move and that's what we did. I'm excited about, now we know there's five players. Who do you want to put your future in? Well, glad we've got a month to really work on it."