49ers GM John Lynch Tells Rich Eisen Players ‘Understand This Is Trey’s Team’

San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch is making the rounds, talking to media about the team’s decision to keep former starter Jimmy Garoppolo as a backup.

The day before NFL rosters had to be trimmed from 80 to 53 men, the 49ers announced Garoppolo agreed to a restructured contract, keeping him in San Francisco as Trey Lance’s backup.

Last week on “The Rich Eisen Show,” Lynch said he and coach Kyle Shanahan pulled aside a group of players to inform them of the team’s plans once they became a reality.

“We pulled 15 players from our team, kind of our leadership committee and we told them, ‘here’s what we’re doing, here’s why we’re doing it’,” Lynch told host Rich Eisen “And we know we’ve created a culture and we’ve got the men that can handle a situation like this. So while the rest of the world may think it’s uncomfortable, that we’re not supporting our lead guy, we don’t believe in that. We believe in this team and we think it makes us better.”

Lynch went on to say the players were excited about the news and spoke about how important a quarterback group for his, and any, team is in the NFL.

“I’m happy we’ve got a quarterback room, that is obviously so important in this league that is really strong going into the season. And Brock Purdy, Mr. Irrelevant made it as well. Usually we keep two quarterbacks but he played very well in the preseason and really forced us to keep him on the 53, as well.

“They have a really strong foundation of a relationship.”#FTTB GM @JohnLynch49ers told us how there’s been no issues with @treylance09 taking over the reins for Jimmy G heading into the 2022 #NFL season: pic.twitter.com/G6xJJvGfwy

— Rich Eisen Show (@RichEisenShow) September 1, 2022

While Lynch didn’t specifically mention who is on that leadership council, he was asked if there is a scenario where Garoppolo could take on the role of starter again if Lance wavers in his first full year as a starter.

“When the call is made to go to the backup, that’s all on Kyle. I’m not passing the buck, that’s his decision as a coach. I think our players trust that and you know the bottom line is when we were drafting Trey Lance, the skill set is obviously important, everything is important when you’re making that big of a decision, but a lot of it is the mental fortitude, the mental toughness, the capacity to handle the pressure at that position and that’s where we thought Trey was as strong as anybody in that draft. And frankly, it was our belief in Trey that allows us to do this because we think he can handle that. Does it provide more pressure on him, looking over the shoulder? We don’t believe so. Maybe that’s the narrative outside, but what we can focus on is having great communication with Trey, with Jimmy, with our players and saying ‘here’s what we’re doing, here’s why we’re doing it and we want you guys to have everybody’s back in this’ and our team understands that. They were all on board. They’ve got great belief in Trey. They’ve played with Jimmy for a long time and have great belief in him, but they understand this is Trey’s team. He’s going to get every shot to go have success and furthermore, and I think more importantly, they believe that he’s destined to.”

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