John Lynch explains why the 49ers won’t pick up Laken Tomlinson’s 5th-year option

The San Francisco 49ers announced this week that the team would pick up defensive end Arik Armstead's fifth-year option. NFL teams have until Thursday to do so for qualifying players. While all NFL draft picks get signed to four-year contracts, NFL teams can activate an optional fifth-year for those selected in the first round. They must do so before the player's fourth NFL season.

While the 49ers extended Armstead's contract through the 2019 season, they will not do the same with guard Laken Tomlinson, who joined the 49ers via a trade with the Detroit Lions on August 31, 2017. He was the No. 28 overall pick by Detroit in 2015.

John Lynch joined the Tolbert & Lund show on KNBR Tuesday night and explained why the 49ers opted not to activate Tomlinson's fifth-year option, which would have paid him $9.625 million in 2019.

"Those options are tricky deals," Lynch said. "So we had that opportunity with [Arik Armstead] and Laken Tomlinson. I actually pulled Laken in here (to my office) yesterday and had a great talk with him. This is in no way a reflection of what we think or don't think of him. In fact, we're going to work towards making Laken a part of us for the long-term future around here.

"It's just these are decisions you have to make. The numbers are different at each position. Offensive guard was a little skewed because they include all offensive lineman. Tackles get paid a lot so that number was extremely high. But we've already been talking with Laken's guys about trying to make something happen, and we'll see if that goes into next year."

Lynch went on to discuss Armstead, who he feels is a good fit for what the 49ers do on defense.

"It allows you another year before he goes to free agency," he continued. "Each situation is unique. For Arik, we felt it was the best thing to do to exercise that option. We get another year locked in, and for Laken, we chose to go the route of starting to engage his agents to try to do something. Both those guys are guys that we want to be a part of us. We just had different decisions to make on them. We think highly of both of them."

After missing the 49ers' season opener last year, Tomlinson went on to start the next 15 games at left guard. He opened up the 49ers' offseason program as one of the two starting guards along the offensive line. The other was Jonathan Cooper, who signed with the team on March 20.

"Laken played exceptionally well," Lynch told the Detroit Free Press in April. "We were really pleased with that. We needed somebody, and to get there Week 1 and be force-fed a pretty complex offense is tough, but we felt like his skill set matched up with what we're trying to do. And the coolest thing is he got better kind of throughout the course of the year and at the end was really playing at a high level, so we have high hopes for him."

Tomlinson has missed just one (last season's opener) of the 48 games over the course of his three NFL years and has started 39. His 15 starts in 2017 were a career-high.

You can listen to the entire conversation with Lynch below.