Under the Kyle Shanahan/John Lynch brain trust, the San Francisco 49ers have never been afraid to make an aggressive move prior to the trade deadline. However, despite having control of all their top picks, a middling record, and a laundry list of injuries, the Niners have yet to make any notable trade acquisitions.
And, with less than a week to go before the deadline, Lynch downplayed the team being close to any move during a radio appearance on KNBR on Wednesday.
“Nothing’s imminent right now. I will tell everyone that,” Lynch said. “But if something does come together here—the trade deadline’s on election day, interesting how they did that—but if anything comes by then, that makes sense, it can make us a better football team, fits with our financial position, and all those things, then we’ll certainly pull the trigger.”
Lynch’s other comments during his conversation checked off the usual bingo card of a front office executive trying to downplay expectations of any big moves on the horizon. Most notably of all, Lynch openly discussed the team’s injury woes and gave listeners the classic line of returnees from injuries equating to trade acquisitions.
“I do look at that injury list and say, … ‘We’ve got a chance to get a lot of these guys back, and that can buoy our team,’” Lynch said. “And that’s as good as any trade we could make because these guys are familiar with what we do, how we do it.”
While the Niners have previously acquired some big name players like Christian McCaffrey and Emmanuel Sanders during the season en route to deep postseason runs, San Francisco has also made more minor moves, adding Charles Omenihu to bolster their defensive line depth in 2021. Lynch’s comments seem to suggest that any additions will be closer to the Omenihu tier than anything else.
“I think when you’re looking at a trade deadline, we’ve taken advantage of it in a number of ways the years in which we’ve been here,” Lynch explained. “It’s been really good to us. It’s just got to be a fit, and you’re always calling and receiving calls.”
