New San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch will have control of the team's 90-man roster, which includes free agency and the draft. New head coach Kyle Shanahan will have control of the 53-man roster. Of course, that is simply what their contracts state. Shanahan was the 49ers' only target late in the search for a head coach and San Francisco was the only remaining team with a head coach vacancy. Shanahan could have demanded more control over the roster, as many within the media assumed he would, but he didn't.
On Thursday, Shanahan was asked, with the clout that he had over the 49ers, why he didn't demand more control like other head coaches in the NFL have done? "Why? I don't want to demand all of it," Shanahan said. "I think, 'What's important to you?' I always thought, 'None of it matters if you're working with the right guy.' So it's what you want to put down on paper and I don't need all that down on paper.
"It was important to me to have the 53 on paper because I think that it's important that the players know that and that the coaching staff is ultimately going to be responsible for that, but that's more of a perception thing. When I got paired up with John and talking to Jed [York], why demand all that stuff when I don't think it matters? It's not something to fight for. It wasn't something that John needed to fight for. I wanted both to have shared responsibility and I think John felt the same.
"We're not coming in here, 'If things go bad, I want to make sure I have all this stuff.' Things aren't going to go bad. We're coming here together and it's going to work together or we're going to lose together and that's what makes it special because of what both our intentions are. There are no hidden agendas with any of us. We're going to keep this as simple as it can be.
"That would be me speaking out two sides of my mouth if I was trying to demand everything and taking advantage of a certain situation."