{"id":875136,"date":"2026-04-26T11:51:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T11:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/875136\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T11:51:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T11:51:20","slug":"49ers-john-lynch-explains-tough-decision-to-trade-dee-winters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/875136\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers’ John Lynch explains tough decision to trade Dee Winters"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a somewhat surprising move during the second round of the 2026 NFL Draft, the San Francisco 49ers traded<\/a> linebacker Dee Winters<\/a> to the Dallas Cowboys in exchange for a fifth-round pick (No. 152 overall).<\/p>\n

Winters, a sixth-round selection by the 49ers in the 2023 NFL Draft, developed into a key contributor for San Francisco’s defense. He started all 17 games last season, totaling 101 tackles, five passes defensed, and one interception returned for a touchdown.<\/p>\n

However, after the 49ers re-signed Dre Greenlaw<\/a> this offseason, it became increasingly clear that Winters’ role could diminish heading into 2026.<\/p>\n

Following Day 2 of the draft, general manager John Lynch addressed the decision to move on from the young linebacker.<\/p>\n

“We made that trade today, and that’s tough because Dee’s a guy who’s done a lot for us here,” Lynch said. “Sixth-round pick out of TCU, but Dee is one of the favorite guys in that locker room amongst his teammates. He’s done a lot for us on the field.<\/p>\n

“We just felt like we were in a good position at linebacker, and Dallas has been really interested in him for a long time. And I’d say the talks probably started with myself and [Cowboys co-owner, EVP] Stephen Jones, when we were talking about [DT] Osa [Odighizuwa]<\/a>. They’ve stayed on that. We kind of held it off for a while, and as we got there today, we just felt like it was the right thing to do for our team.<\/p>\n

“It’s a good opportunity for Dee. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for him to shine, and just very grateful for Dee’s time here and all his contributions he made to our squad.”<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the 49ers believe the move reflects their depth at linebacker and their willingness to make difficult decisions to improve the roster in the long term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a somewhat surprising move during the second round of the 2026 NFL Draft, the San Francisco 49ers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":875137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,20772,1160,7,2810,6,9115,1161,252,2624,2623],"class_list":{"0":"post-875136","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-dee-winters","10":"tag-dre-greenlaw","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-john-lynch","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-osa-odighizuwa","15":"tag-san-francisco","16":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","17":"tag-sanfrancisco","18":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116470866518888779","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875136","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=875136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}