49ers GM John Lynch Shows Up Surprisingly High on This Ranking

John Lynch was ranked the eight best General Manager in the NFL. Some San Francisco 49ers would be shocked at this ranking, but NBC Sports also listed Kyle Shanahan as a co-GM of sorts when adding the ranking. Overall, it highlights how cloudy the discussion is when evaluating a General Manager.

Is John Lynch a top ten General Manager in the NFL?

If you like Lynch, you can make a strong case that he is a great GM, and if you do not like him, you can make just as strong a case against him.

The case against him is that he reaches a lot on draft picks, his roster always seems to be thin due to injuries, and they obviously have not gotten over the Super Bowl hump despite having major stars at important positions of need.

Trading for Trey Lance and losing multiple first-round picks along the way is the ultimate red mark on his career, but spending a mid-round pick on an unproductive running back is starting to become a theme as well.

Still, the biggest case for Lynch is that he is mostly creating a roster around the construction that head coach Kyle Shanahan desires. So, while it is his roster and his decisions, he is being boxed in a bit by the type of decisions that he has to make.

If you tie Shanahan to these decisions, it is hard to get mad because Shanahan always wins despite the mistakes, and the 49ers are typically in contention with these two running the show. It is one thing if Lynch is holding back Shanahan, but if this is mostly the doing of Shanahan, it is hard to complain.

More than that, for every big miss, you can point to some massive hits at insanely late draft slots.

Not only did George Kittle get drafted 146th overall, but DJ Jones was taken in the same draft, 198th overall. Fred Warner went 70th overall, and DJ Reed went 142nd the very next year. He drafted Dre Greenlaw 148th in the next draft, and then Colton McKivitz went 153rd nd Jauan Jennings went 217th after that.

Jaylon Moore at pick 155, Deommodore Lenoir at pick 172, and Talanoa Hufanga at pick 180 are all starters currently. Then, of course, there is Brock Purdy with the last pick in the draft.

Lynch has flaws, but he has established equity, which is why the ranking is not far off base, even if it looks high at first glance.

This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/49ers/onsi as 49ers GM John Lynch Shows Up Surprisingly High on This Ranking.

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This story was originally published May 23, 2026 at 3:00 PM.