{"id":32525,"date":"2025-05-08T02:00:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T02:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/32525\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T02:00:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T02:00:14","slug":"why-49ers-nfl-draft-picks-eased-kyle-shanahan-stress-per-john-lynch-nbc-sports-bay-area-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/32525\/","title":{"rendered":"Why 49ers\u2019 NFL draft picks eased Kyle Shanahan stress, per John Lynch \u2013 NBC Sports Bay Area & California"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Lynch<\/a> remembers Kyle Shanahan\u2019s<\/a> ease after the 49ers landed their two top prospects during the 2025 NFL Draft<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Monday\u2019s edition of the \u201cChris Simms Unbuttoned\u201d podcast<\/a>, San Francisco\u2019s president of football operations\/general manager explained why his partner and 49ers coach was relieved by the team selecting Georgia edge rusher Mykel Williams<\/a> at No. 11 and Texas defensive tackle Alfred Collins<\/a> at No. 43.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost a lot of D-line. After our first two picks \u2026 Kyle was like, \u2018Dude, I think I just exhaled for the first time in three months.\u2019 Because we had added two guys in Mykel Williams<\/a> and Alfred Collins<\/a> that we felt were integral and the guys we wanted,\u201d Lynch cheerfully explained. \u201cIf [the draft] worked out perfectly, we\u2019d have these two guys, and we got those two guys.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a long process \u2013 it\u2019s ongoing, it doesn\u2019t stop now. But that\u2019s kind of how our mini reset \u2013 I say mini reset, but at the end of this offseason, we might be a top-two spending team; I don\u2019t know if Jed York would agree with the \u2018reset\u2019 part.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Shanahan needed that breather.<\/p>\n

The 49ers have gone through so much since narrowly losing Super Bowl LVIII to the Kansas City Chiefs in February 2024. Everything from tragedies, injuries, big-time contract negotiations<\/a> and general organizational changes has fogged San Francisco over the last 14 months, leaving Lynch and Shanahan to become experts in crisis management.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s before mentioning the 49ers finished an NFC West-worst 6-11 during the 2024 NFL season with a blatant need for help in the trenches. Nonetheless, the 2025 draft offered San Francisco a moment to regroup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lynch added, \u201cIf Mykel wasn\u2019t there, it likely would\u2019ve been an offensive player,\u201d and that the 49ers received eight to 10 phone calls regarding trades on Draft Day \u2013 April 24.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fortunately for San Francisco, the players it wanted were available.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, we had a lot of open spots, so we had to fill those,\u201d Lynch said. \u201cAnd we were fortunate that it aligned in such a way that we could go get a bunch of defense and then start adding some guys that we thought could help us now and into the future on the offensive side<\/a> of the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 49ers selected six defensive players and five offensive players; as Lynch explained, San Francisco had needs everywhere.<\/p>\n

The additions of Williams and Collins, though, were the most crucial for the 49ers, as their D-line often struggled to generate a push in 2024, particularly against the run. It makes sense why Shanahan was able to exhale after his team addressed one of its biggest needs on paper.<\/p>\n

Download and follow the 49ers Talk Podcast<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Lynch remembers Kyle Shanahan\u2019s ease after the 49ers landed their two top prospects during the 2025 NFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,583,7,2810,2812,1493,6,1161,252,2624,2623],"class_list":{"0":"post-32525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-49ers","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-alfred-collins","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-john-lynch","12":"tag-kyle-shanahan","13":"tag-mykel-williams","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-san-francisco","16":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","17":"tag-sanfrancisco","18":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114469747313993400","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}