San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch was at his daughter's school tennis match when his phone rang. The Miami Dolphins were still mulling over the trade offer he had presented on March 4 for the No. 3 overall pick. San Francisco was willing to surrender its first-round picks in 2022 and 2023 to swap spots in 2021. It had been weeks since Lynch presented the offer. The Dolphins were very interested but needed a little more motivation.
"We weren't going to officially do the deal with that," Miami general manager Chris Grier told Peter King of NBC Sports, "because we knew the importance of that third pick."
The Dolphins wanted one more thing — a third-round pick in 2022.
Lynch had to think it over. San Francisco was already surrendering a lot of draft capital to move up nine spots from the No. 12 slot. The team would need to hold onto as many other picks as possible with no first-round selections over the next two years.
The 49ers eventually went through with the deal and selected quarterback Trey Lance at No. 3 overall.
Why was Lynch willing to succumb to the pressure from Miami? Because he and head coach Kyle Shanahan saw that third-round selection as a bonus. The one they ended up including in the trade package was the compensatory pick the team was set to be awarded due to the departure of Robert Saleh to the New York Jets. It was a "total bonus," according to Shanahan.
"Lynch wasn't angry about the late ask for the third-rounder," King wrote in his latest Football Morning in America feature. "He'd done almost exactly the same thing in his first 49er draft in 2017, asking Chicago GM Ryan Pace for an extra third-round-pick to get a deal done for Chicago to move from three to two in the first round. Pace did it—and infamously picked Mitchell Trubisky. 'I love dealing with Chris,' Lynch said Saturday. 'He's not emotional about it, and his word is everything. Chris is a rock.'"
In the end, Shanahan got the prospect he had started falling in love with back in January. The move ended up costing a lot. Of course, that won't matter if Lance ends up performing at a high level for the foreseeable future.