A lot of excitement surrounded the San Francisco 49ers' hires of John Lynch as general manager and Kyle Shanahan as head coach. Even after what might be viewed as a disastrous nine-game losing streak to start the season, faith in the hires never seemed to waver.
Even Lynch himself has admitted he believed the team would have produced more during that nine-game stretch. Despite having to move past loss after loss, Lynch and Shanahan stayed the course and continued the "brick-by-brick" rebuild of the once-proud franchise.
It was Shanahan who convinced Lynch to leave his job as a broadcaster and take on the challenges of his current role. While Lynch had a lot of respect for Shanahan as an offensive coordinator, he was still shocked by certain traits that would reveal themselves as a head coach.
"I knew what I thought of him as a play caller," Lynch told Ryan Covay on KNBR Thursday night. "I thought he was unparalleled in terms of an offensive mind. But what I didn't know is how he would lead, how he would message to a team, and I've been blown away with how polished he is. He just has a really good pulse of our team. He connects with them, and he's been really, really special in that way.
"It's a great thing to know that he's only going to get better. This is his first year at doing it. I think that should leave everybody very encouraged. It certainly has me feeling that way."
Lynch went on to say he and Shanahan had a specific vision for the players acquired during the offseason and fans are just starting to see how Shanahan plans to utilize each.
"We wanted a separator in the slot," Lynch said. The 49ers got that with rookie wide receiver Trent Taylor.
"We wanted a fullback that could also play receiver and could play fullback," he said. The 49ers got that with Kyle Juszczyk.
"It's just such an advantage and Kyle articulated why it is, and I think we're all seeing that now," Lynch continued. "Seeing that all come to fruition has been really exciting. I think the most exciting thing is that these guys are playing really well right now, but we know how much better we can get and how much better we need to get. We haven't done anything yet. We've won [five] games, which is great, but we have higher aspirations.
"We're going to continue pushing forward and going through the same processes. Hopefully, learn from mistakes that we made in our first year and be even better. We've got a long way to go as a football team.
"I think that's another thing Kyle has done really well, is we want these guys to be proud of what they're accomplishing, but also to know our standard is much higher than winning four games at the end of the year. We've got to finish, first of all, this week, and then carry that over to a real successful offseason."
You can listen to the entire interview with Lynch below.