John Lynch Scared?

Coming into the 2018 season the San Francisco 49ers were a dark horse playoff team. Ending the 2017 season on a five-game winning streak and adding offensive pieces like Jerick McKinnon and first-round pick Mike McGlinchey there was a lot of optimism. However, that soon faded when McKinnon was injured in the last pre-season practice, followed by Jimmy GQ tearing his ACL against the Chiefs.
Three weeks into the season the front office was already preparing for what to do with a likely top-five draft pick in 2019.
So far, in the Lynch/ Shanahan era, they have had some solid picks. Fred Warner and Mike McG were great additions in 2018, and George Kittle was an elite fifth-round pick in 2017.
However, besides Kittle, the 2017 draft was an utter disaster for John Lynch. Everyone was raving about Lynch finessing the Chicago Bears into trading up for San Francisco’s second overall pick to take Mitchell Trubisky. It was a good and creative move by Lynch, but then he turns around and takes a soft incapable defensive end in Solomon Thomas (not to mention they had drafted defensive ends with the past two first rounds picks in 2015/2016) Thomas has been a non-factor in his first two seasons with the 49ers and should be cut and indicted on theft/ racketeering charges. To add insult to injury here are some other names taken in the first round that year after Thomas: Jamal Adams, Christian McCaffrey, Marshon Lattimore, and PATRICK MAHOMES.
But let’s not stop there. Lynch went on to trade back into the first round to snag serial domestic violence offender Reuben Foster, who since has been released from the team. Players drafted after Foster include: Alvin Kamara, JuJu Smith- Schuster, Joe Mixon, and Cooper Kupp.
All of this leads me to my point: Two years later in 2019, John Lynch has another decision to make with the second overall pick. He can either chose another defensive end, which would be their fourth DE selected in the last five drafts. Or Lynch can wise up and make an offer for arguably the best all-around wide receiver in the NFL.
In 2018 the 49ers had no wide-receivers go over 500 years. Some of that can be attributed to the quarterback situation with Jimmy out, but that didn’t stop tight end George Kittle from setting the single-season tight-end receiving record. Think about all the creative schemes Kyle Shanahan can dial up with Jimmy GQ, Jerick McKinnon, George Kittle, Antonio Brown, and their speedy 2018 second-round pick Dante Pettis. Pay for some more help on the offensive line and the 49ers would have the most lethal offense in the NFL.
2019 will be John Lynch’s third season and third draft. So far all he has to show for it are two bottom ten seasons. If the 49ers are not competitive enough to be in the playoff conversation come week 17 next year, the ownership has to consider eating the rest of his deal and shipping him off. Now is the time for the 49ers to be aggressive and get a generational talent instead of another defensive end.