John Lynch Should Be Fired; Will He Be?

[NinerSickness]

Dude was an amateur, and it's showing.

Solomon Thomas: bust

Mitch Trubisky: already a good QB.

Reuben Foster: about to be cut and / or suspended 16 games.

Ahkello Witherspoon: clearly worse than a lot of players left on the board

Dante Pettis: see Witherspoon.

CJ Beathard: useless. Just like I said.

NinerSickness > Trent Baalke > John Lynch > Terry Donahue <----------- (This is sad).

[thesack12]

Its appalling how bad this team has performed at the top of the draft since 2012.

2012

1st: AJ Jenkins: COLOSSAL bust, never recorded a single reception for the team
2nd: Washed out of the league after 18 total games played, never scored a TD

2013

1st: Eric Reid: Solid player
2nd: Tank Carradine: Bust, never became more than a situational player
2nd: Vance McDonald: Has talent but did nothing but disapoint in Frisco
3rd: Corey Lemonier: Out of the league, Only managed 35 tackles and 3 sacks in 46 career games

2014

1st: Jimmie Ward: Can't stay healthy and even when he's on the field he's highly ineffective
2nd: Carlos Hyde: OK player but already on 3rd team
3rd: Marcus Martin: Total bust
3rd: Chris Borland: Great rookie year, but retired after 1 season
3rd: Brandon Thomas: Don't think he ever stepped on the field in a regular season game

2015

1st: Arik Armstead: VERY underwhelming player, more of a rotational type
2nd: JaQuiski Tartt: OK player
3rd: Eli Harold: OK player but now off the team

2016

1st: DeForest Buckner: The 1 great pick in this list, probably the best player on the team
1st: Josh Garnett: Complete bust that Baalke traded extra picks to move up for
3rd: Will Redmond: Has 1 career game under his belt

2017

1st: Soloman Thomas: Another colossal bust
1st: Reuben Foster: Always had character concerns yet Lynch traded extra picks to move up for him, off the team already
3rd: Ahkello Witherspoon: Pretty bad overall thus far
3rd: CJ Beathard: Already pushed aside by an UDFA

2018

1st: Mike McGlinchey: Has the early makings of a rock solid pick
2nd: Dante Pettis: Hasn't been able to find production even in a very underwhelming receiving corps
3rd: Fred Warner: He's coming along pretty well so far
3rd: Tarvarius Moore: Incomplete


Ugh, compiling that list and seeing it all together its even worse than I realized just thinking back on prior drafts.

[wco81]

He’s still responsible for Kittle, the Garoppolo trade and McGlinchey.

No heat on Kyle and Lynch yet because of Jimmy’s injury but this offseason — draft and free agency — will be key.

They had to net at least 3-4 good players and get to .500 or else the team will have to start talking about cutting their losses.

[TheMonarch]

The 2017 draft was bad, but he did better last year. Hopefully learned some lessons and will continue to improve. He shouldn't be fired yet.

[NinerSickness]

He’s still responsible for Kittle, the Garoppolo trade and McGlinchey

A RT at 9: not exactly a genius find.

Garoppolo: he lucked out nobody traded for him before that, and the Pats were desperate.

Kittle & Warner were his only great picks (I loved the Warner pick). That's not gonna cut it when you piss away a 3 and a 29.

[DoobieKeebler]

Dude was an amateur, and it's showing.

Solomon Thomas: bust

Maybe not initially, but now, yes.

Mitch Trubisky: already a good QB.

That trade was still a good trade. Lynch got good value from the Bears. Even if Trubisky is doing well, we still got Garoppolo, so it should even out, right?

Reuben Foster: about to be cut and / or suspended 16 games.

Sure, Reuben Foster is dumb as a brick for still playing around, let alone being on speaking terms with the woman with whom previously accused him with DV (that is, of course, if he didn't actually hurt her and she's just mentally unstable. If he convinced her to purger herself and then beat on her again, good riddance.). Reuben was a top 10, if not a top 5 talent, that fell in the draft because of various concerns, and the Niners took a savvy flier on him because they were so bereft of LB talent. One only needs to think back to the game against the Giants, when Malcolm Smith was attempting to cover Saquan Barkley and was literally doing 360 spins trying to keep up with him. Even when PFF says that Reuben is having a trash year, he's light years better than THAT.

Ahkello Witherspoon: clearly worse than a lot of players left on the board

Hindsight is 20/20. A decent rookie year, a sophomore slump.... OK, a sophomore trash barge, but Ahkello was a good draft prospect.

Dante Pettis: see Witherspoon.

Jumping the gun, are we? No Niners WR has topped 300 receiving yards, and our FB Juszczyk is 3rd in reception yards, so it's unfair to dump on Pettis. Not to Mention that now that Mullens is in the game Pettis just lead the team in yards today.

CJ Beathard: useless. Just like I said.

If we didn't draft Beathard, we wouldn't have Kittle... or maybe if we didn't have Kittle, we wouldn't have Beathard? None the less, it was said at the time that we drafted both of them because they were Iowa teammates and had that Iowa connection.


But lets not look at prior drafts and play the "I told ya so! game. Let's instead look to the future. The real referendum on Lynch going forward into 2019 will be whether or not he fires Robert freaking Salah after this season. Last year Saleh dipped his toe into the pool of crappiness, but in 2018 he decided to take a big ol bellyflop into the pool. Shannahan should already know that Salah needs to go, but if he doesn't, Lynch needs to show who the boss is and lay the HAMMER....down (old website lolz)

[NinerSickness]

Hindsight is 20/20. A decent rookie year, a sophomore slump.... OK, a sophomore trash barge, but Ahkello was a good draft prospect.

Hindsight, nuthin'. I was criticizing that pick on draft day. He's not even starter material, IMO.

Should he be playing FS instead???

[DoobieKeebler]

Hindsight is 20/20. A decent rookie year, a sophomore slump.... OK, a sophomore trash barge, but Ahkello was a good draft prospect.

Hindsight, nuthin'. I was criticizing that pick on draft day. He's not even starter material, IMO.

Then my mistake. I personally liked Ahkello, and thought he was doing well when given chances his rookie year, but this year has been extremely poor.

Now, that said, Under Salah's anti-pressure, anti-Dick LeBeau defense, any CB who isn't all world is going to look bad.

[NinerSickness]

Hindsight is 20/20. A decent rookie year, a sophomore slump.... OK, a sophomore trash barge, but Ahkello was a good draft prospect.

Hindsight, nuthin'. I was criticizing that pick on draft day. He's not even starter material, IMO.

Then my mistake. I personally liked Ahkello, and thought he was doing well when given chances his rookie year, but this year has been extremely poor.

Now, that said, Under Saleh's anti-pressure, anti-Dick LeBeau defense, any CB who isn't all world is going to look bad.

You're right about Selah; he should be fired, IMO. However, Niners have no pass rushers, so the DBs are gonna struggle regardless.

But CB is a position you don't want a guy who struggles. You can get away with a struggling 4-3 LB or safety, but the DL & CBs make the defense. I hope the Niners trade for Jaylen Ramsey in the offseason. Swap picks with jags & throw in the first rounder from 2020.

[Pattersonca65]

Can't put Lynch in Baalke's level yet. He needs about 5 more years of bad drafting to catch up to Baalke. I'll give the FO one more year but if they choke this than that is it. But this isn't Baalke. Baalke was a one man show pulling the trigger. York decided he wanted a team approach to the roster so he hired Lynch and Shanahan as a tandem and alot of the picks on offense were Shanahan picks. If you fire lynch, you might as well fire Mayhew and Peters. And you have to then hire a new GM and take some of the power away from Shanahan.

Unfortunately Thomas was a bad pick made much worse by insisting that he play the LEO. Foster was a big gamble that blew up on them. Williams was a bad pick. Witherspoon on the fence, not a great. Moore is still an unknown. I would look at putting him at his natural position, safety.

Some good ones. Kittle was a steal. Brieda was a great UDFA pickup. Warner was a great pickup. So was McGlinchey. And so was picking up Jimmy G.

[CrimsonCrew]

I think it's premature to bail on Lynch. He's still something of a longshot as a personnel evaluator, but he's got a lot of positives going for him, and I think he and Shanahan work well together.

There are plenty of question marks with Lynch on the personnel front: paying huge salaries to guys like Jusczyk and McKinnon, not to mention Garcon, drafting Thomas (I hated that pick at 3, and even I thought he'd be better than he has, though I'm not quite willing to call him a bust just yet), drafting Foster (I'll cop to loving that pick despite the red flags), trading up for or drafting guys prematurely. But he's still finding his footing and the cupboard was pretty bare when he came in. And it hasn't all been awful. As memory serves, Sick (and pretty much everyone else except me) was ready to jump ship on McCloughan back around 2007. I'm certainly not equating Lynch to McCloughan as an evaluator, but there is a tendency to jump the gun when things aren't going well.

2017 was a rough draft for the second pick as there was Garrett and then everyone else. I wanted to take literally any offer to trade down and take one of the other defensive guys (Lattimore, Barnett, or Hooker), but at least we got something for the #2 spot. Last year at this time, the 2017 draft was looking quite strong even with Thomas' struggles. Foster looked like an impact player, Kittle was starting to emerge, Colbert and Witherspoon played significant roles in our strong end of the season, Taylor looked like a great slot guy. I'm not ready to give up on all these guys (Foster excepted) at this point, but we certainly need to see more from all but Kittle.

As for this year, I didn't love the McGlinchey pick, but it's looking like a solid one. The true test will come if/when he moves to LT. I hated the Pettis pick, especially trading up for him, but it's very early to give up on him. He's shown some flashes, and accounted for over 1/3 of the team's receiving yards and 2/3 of our points this week. I'm curious to see what he does with the rest of the season. Loved the Warner pick, and love it more now that Foster is gone. The rest...I would have taken Hurst (and several other players) ahead of Street in a heartbeat, but we'll see how Street pans out. It's hard to criticize third-day picks at this stage.

[Ray_Dogg]

This off-season is his last shot imo. If they don’t hit in free agency and the draft then he needs to go back to calling games on TV.

[VictoryValhalla]

This off-season is his last shot imo. If they don’t hit in free agency and the draft then he needs to go back to calling games on TV.

I dunno...I think it's far too early to give up on the Duo...that's been our Achilles heel for how man seasons? I like both Lynch and Shanny and we've been decimated by injuries with very key players so I feel like it's hard to place blame anywhere. Everyone is basically trying out for next year and we do have a couple gems in McGlinchy and Brieda...and even some of the young WR's and RB's.

[Jikkle]

You can't divorce Lynch from Shanahan and they both should be criticized for the roster.

I doubt Lynch has made any moves that weren't what Shanahan wanted or at least had his blessing for and Shanahan was the one that chose Lynch to be the GM.

The biggest concern I see right now is that they seem to be falling in that trap that Baalke did and that is bringing in guys great physical attributes and hoping you can develop them once you get your hands on them even if their production in college was so-so.

2017 has been a disaster of a draft for Lynch/Shanahan with only Kittle being the only one that's had quality production with everyone else heading towards bust status or being huge question marks.

2018 is shaping up to be better. McGlinchey and Warner have had good production, Pettis has at least shown some flash, and the rest are more or less we'll have to wait and see on.

But ultimately nobody is going to get fired until 2020 at the earliest. They both have 6 year guaranteed contracts and York has no choice but to stick with them to repair his horrible reputation and continue to earn some credibility in league circles.

[wco81]

I'm guessing Lynch doesn't have the final say on player personnel.

He's leaning on the player personnel staff as well as Kyle.

Still, if they don't have a good yield this offseason, Kyle would probably dump him to cover his own ass.

[CalamityX12]

Realistically I don't think he's going to get fired yet... however his 6 yr window has shorten IMO.

Maybe its next offseason or at best 4th TBH...

Botching/failing at BOTH 2017 first rd picks as well as drafting a non impact CB in the 3rd...

while ignoring some actual decent or more beneficial players... it does not look good for Lynch.

[CalamityX12]

the fact that we're not going to look good for awhile would make the Jimmy G trade seem like a waste. We probably can't/won't field a true overall competitive team til Jimmy's 4th yr LOL

[CrimsonCrew]

the fact that we're not going to look good for awhile would make the Jimmy G trade seem like a waste. We probably can't/won't field a true overall competitive team til Jimmy's 4th yr LOL

Dude just turned 27, so I'm fine with the team not being good until he's 30. Either he's got it or he doesn't, but he's got a decade in him if he does have it, so you don't let the caliber of the team around him factor into the decision to trade for him.

In some ways, having a terrible season this year may be a blessing in disguise. If we could land a guy like Bosa, that would address our #1 weakness. We still have lots of holes, and we desperately need Witherspoon and/or Moore to pan out at CB, but adding an impact pass rusher can cover up a lot of weaknesses. On offense, I think we could return this cast with Jimmy and McKinnon and be fine, though obviously there are several areas where you'd like to upgrade.

[NinerSickness]

As memory serves, Sick (and pretty much everyone else except me) was ready to jump ship on McCloughan back around 2007. I'm certainly not equating Lynch to McCloughan as an evaluator, but there is a tendency to jump the gun when things aren't going well.

Actually, I loved the 2007 draft, and I was And I don't remember ever calling for McCloughan to be fired. I hated the Crabtree pick with a passion in 2009, and I hated drafting Anthony Davis at 10 or 11 the next year (that was after McCloughan was fired for being drunk, but the draft board was probably set by then).

McClouhgan being fired was a surprise to me & to everyone who didn't know he was a boozehound.

Baalke, on the other hand, I wanted fired after the 2013 NFC Championship game because he was clueless enough to think the team had a future with Kaeptard at QB. If you can't see that he was never going to be a good QB, you have no business being a scout in the NFL, much less a GM.

And I never liked the Lynch hire in the first place. I hated the 2017 draft, and I think he's out of his league.

[I_am_1z]

Kyle shanny just lost to the Bucs... Then once again threw the team under the bus... just like many good coaches are known for