On Wednesday, John Lynch was asked if he plans to remain the San Francisco 49ers general manager in 2023. The question was presented because Amazon courted Lynch last year, hoping to lure the executive back to the broadcast booth for Thursday Night Football games. Lynch turned down a significant pay raise to remain with the 49ers because he felt there was unfinished business.
Lynch still feels that way.
How did he respond when asked if he would stick around with head coach Kyle Shanahan and the team?
"I think so. You good, Kyle?" Lynch said, laughing and looking at Shanahan, who sat beside him for their end-of-season press conference.
Obviously, his mind is made up. The 49ers put together a competitive roster in 2022, one that might have reached the Super Bowl had Brock Purdy, who started the season as QB3, not suffered a tear of the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in the elbow of his throwing arm during the first quarter of Sunday's NFC Championship Game.
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"No, I plan on being here," Lynch continued. "I really do, and I'm committed to doing this, and I'm having a great time doing it, and committed to finding a way to get a little bit better.
"I'm real proud of what we were able to do this year. That's hard to say because our expectations and our standards were to win the whole thing. But I do think, in life, you have to be able to acknowledge that even when the end result isn't what you wanted, that some special things happened.
"I'm proud of the team we built. I can't say enough about the job Kyle and his coaching staff did. I've got a lot of respect for our players, the way they handled themselves. It's hard to win a game in this league, let alone 12 straight, and unfortunately, on the last game, it just wasn't in the cards, and I think that will always be there, this feeling."
Lynch expressed his respect for the Philadelphia Eagles, the team that ended the 49ers' playoff run on Sunday and will meet the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 57. However, like fans, the general manager wonders what might have happened had Purdy never been injured.
"I'd love to be able to take them on with that same team we had and be able to do it with a full complement and some other things," Lynch said, "but that wasn't in the cards on that day. But I'll still look back on this season with fond memories. ... But our job now is to find a way to get better, and there's challenges to that, but that's what we'll do. I'm committed, and our ownership is committed, and Kyle and I are committed to finding a way to get better, and that's exactly what we plan on doing."