© Kyle Terada – USA Today | 2017 Dec 17
John Lynch isn’t giving anything away.
The 49ers GM continued to keep his cards close to the vest in an interview with Murph & Mac on Wednesday morning, only going as far as saying that the 49ers are working on a long-term deal with quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, and that the 49ers are optimistic they can get one done.
“As I said last week, we are working hard and these things are complicated,” Lynch said. “We feel optimistic in the discussions we’ve had with Jimmy’s side, and not going to give a play-by-play as we agreed with Don Yee (Garoppolo’s agent) and Jimmy’s camp that we weren’t going to give play-by-plays on this, we are going to let it happen. I can tell you that we’ve had pretty good conversations and we are very optimistic.”
If the 49ers are unable to come to a long-term agreement this offseason, San Francisco can use the one-year franchise tag on Garoppolo, which is projected to be around $23.5 million for next season.
“I think the most important thing in a deal like this, as I said we want Jimmy very much to be our franchise quarterback, and I think Jimmy wants that as well,” Lynch said. “To me that makes too much sense not to happen. So, we’re going to continue working. Don Yee’s got another quarterback in this game, who’s very focused on this game, so we’re going to let this week play out and then get back to work and we’ll see. That’s the best update I can give you.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Lynch on Jimmy G skip to 3:00.