SANTA CLARA — Inside the John McVay draft room on the second floor of the San Francisco 49ers’ team facility, GM John Lynch told reporters it’s fair to say he and Kyle Shanahan have narrowed down the No. 2 overall selection to 2-3 players.
My bet is that one of those players is a safety, the position Lynch played for 15 years at a Hall of Fame level. Now, I’ve gone to Las Vegas and lost many dollar bills on the roulette table. But my hunch is that Lynch chooses to establish his regime with the most talented player at the position he knows best.
Whether that’s Ohio State ball-hawker Malik Hooker or LSU’s Jamal Adams is anybody’s best guess. But a variety of factors show us picking a safety makes the most sense for the 49ers.
It’s already abundantly clear Lynch is not your traditional GM. He’s going to be a little less involved in the overall scouting operation, and more involved with the football team downstairs. What better mentor could Hooker or Adams ask for than Lynch? Without overstepping his boundaries, Lynch is going to want to establish a strong relationship with his first-ever draft pick. He’s going to be able to provide wisdom. He could potentially help expedite Hooker or Adams’ transition to the NFL. Lynch could add more value than just picking a player.
Next, we move on to the fact we’re living in a passing league. Yes, the 49ers don’t have their own aerial attack setup yet for long term success. And if they aren’t in love with a quarterback or pure pass rusher, they need to fortify the back end of their defense. Shanahan should be in agreement with this after he watched Tom Brady shred Atlanta’s secondary in the final 20 minutes of the Super Bowl.
If the 49ers are planning on extending Eric Reid’s contract next offseason — a good idea — picking a center fielder to pair him with makes a ton of sense. Shanahan and Lynch are hellbent on trying Jimmie Ward out at safety, an experiment that would leave a gaping hole at cornerback. It’s really a nice thought to try, but the 49ers might be actually doing Ward a disservice if they put too much on his plate. He’s a solid outside cornerback and needs all the reps he can get there to continue his ascension.
Is Lynch looking more for a playmaking safety in Hooker or a consistent force that has to be game-planned around in Adams? Hooker has more of those center fielder characteristics the team needs — 6-foot-2, rangy, strong instincts, the ability to read the quarterback’s eyes. He picked off seven passes at Ohio State and is always around the ball. Adams, meanwhile, plays much like Lynch did in the NFL. A jack-of-all-trades, Adams is a violent hitter, an intelligent field general and has the innate leadership skills San Francisco’s locker room has lacked the last couple of seasons. On the contrary, Adams’ skills are similar to Reid and Jaquiski Tartt. That’s a topic Lynch and his scouting department better have discussed and dissected if he truly is the pick.
To me, Solomon Thomas is a riskier pick than either of these safeties. Versatility is an attractive quality, but it shouldn’t be a guiding principal on taking a player. What exactly is Thomas going to do well down-in and down-out, and does his arrival impact the growth of DeForest Buckner? If Thomas was a pure pass rusher in the mold of DeMarcus Ware, I’d turn in the card now. Again, versatility becomes less of an attractive quality when NaVorro Bowman is really the only player offensive coordinators have to game plan around. This team needs a hallmark player to own a spot on the field.
And if this pick is Leonard Fournette, are we allowed to say Kyle Shanahan won the tiebreaker? Lynch isn’t solely “the GM of the defense” but after using most of the free agency resources on offense, the thought process leading up to the draft has been take the best defensive player available. Still, Shanahan’s been thriving in the league for 10 years. The argument can be made his opinion matters a little more than a first-time GM. But Shanahan has made it clear from Day 1, he doesn’t want a power struggle.
Lynch went into some detail yesterday about the 50-50 arrangement Jed York wanted for personnel decisions in this partnership.
“It’s a good question. It’s one that we forced ourselves to talk about and discuss,” Lynch said on Monday. “I’m not trying to cop out, but it’s going to be collective. Kyle and I made a commitment early on that we’re going to come into this thing and we figured out our own way to have our tie breaker. It’s not something that we’ve just kind of put aside and come Thursday night like, ‘What do you want to do?’ ‘I don’t know. What do you want to do?’ We’ve got a plan. I can tell you that.”
If Hooker is the target, the 49ers might be able to sneak down the draft board, but certainly not outside of the top 10. If Adams is Lynch’s guy, he’s going to have to pull the trigger at No. 2.
And if I’m completely wrong on this hunch, you have 48 hours to make fun of me as much as you want on Twitter.