San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch joined The Rich Eisen Show on Friday and, as is often the case during interviews, was asked about quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. Peter King, now with NBC Sports, recently told Eisen that only a handful of people know the reason why Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots were willing to surrender their coveted backup quarterback for a second-round pick when they likely could have received more from another team.
"The people that know the answer to that question is Belichick, (Robert) Kraft, maybe (Tom) Brady, and he said John Lynch," Eisen said of his conversation with King.
Does Lynch know why the Patriots were willing to take less from San Francisco?
"I don't, and I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it other than I'm appreciative that we had the opportunity to bring a player in like that," Lynch answered. "Everybody says if you don't have that guy at that position, you're looking for it, and we certainly were looking for it. We thought it would come via different avenues. We knew there was going to be a good free agency crop and that there were a lot of guys both in our first draft and our second draft.
"We passed in our first draft, and we were kind of going about our business, and the opportunity presented itself, and we jumped at it. The thing I think we did well and it was probably Kyle (Shanahan) showing more strength than me was (saying), 'Just because we traded for Jimmy, it doesn't mean that he's our guy moving forward. We feel like it's worth a second-round pick to see if this is our guy.'
"It was a short amount of time to figure that out, but it was impactful, the time we spent around him. There was a time when we both looked at each other and said, 'We need to do this.' That's exactly what we did, and thankfully, he was open to that idea of doing something long-term as well."
You can listen to Eisen's entire conversation with Lynch below. During the phone interview, the 49ers general manager also discusses his relationship with Shanahan, his thoughts on Denver Broncos majority owner Pat Bowlen, who was just named as a Pro Football Hall of Fame contributor finalist, and what Garoppolo brings to the table.
