49ers, GM John Lynch reach 5-year extension, sources say

SANTA CLARA, Calif. --San Francisco 49ersgeneral manager John Lynch isn't going anywhere.

The news came Wednesday morning that the Niners and Lynch have finalized an agreement on a new deal. Sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter that Lynch's new contract will span five years and tie him to the team through the 2024 season.

Of course, word of Lynch's agreement didn't come as much of a surprise. During a local radio appearance Tuesday, Lynch hinted that he was close to a new contract that would keep him in his job for the long term.

"I could tell you I think there's some good news around the corner," Lynch said on KNBR Radio in San Francisco. "I kind of live in the moment, not thinking years and years out, don't know if I'm going to be a lifer at this thing, but I love what we're doing, I love coming to work each day and I think there's some good news on the horizon."

Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, the Niners have some stability at the top. Lynch's deal comes on the heels of the team's mid-June announcement of a new six-year contract with head coach Kyle Shanahan. That deal made Shanahan one of the league's five highest-paid coaches and will keep him with the team through the 2025 season.

At the time, some wondered when Lynch would get a similar contract extension. Although it took about six additional weeks for it to happen, Lynch was unfazed by the delay. In fact, Lynch explained Tuesday that his deal lagged behind a bit simply because the market rate for general managers isn't as dynamic as it is for head coaches.

So, while Shanahan was underpaid relative to his performance and to other coaches in the league, Lynch was still pretty much in line with other general managers.

"Kyle was first in line because of a lot of semantics," Lynch said Tuesday. "Frankly, I came in at a good number. Because I was making real good money at Fox. [COO] Jed [York] and Kyle decided they wanted me, and I had a pretty good gig going, so it was going to take a lot to get me here. So, I came in at the top of the market there, and Kyle didn't. He was a first-time head coach. And so, I understood that Kyle was going to be first. Jed and Kyle got done and then a pandemic breaks out and so we kind of put things on hold, and I was fine with that... But Jed, true to his word, we've picked it back up."

York initially broached the topic of extensions for Lynch and Shanahan right before the Super Bowl, letting his top decision-makers know he wanted to keep them together for as long as possible. That also didn't come as a surprise after the 49ers' dramatic turnaround in 2019.

Shanahan and Lynch signed matching six-year contracts in February 2017 with the idea that they'd get ample time to turn around a franchise that had won just seven games total in the two seasons before their arrival. After posting just 10 wins in the first two seasons of their rebuild, Shanahan and Lynch's Niners surged to a 13-3 record, claimed the NFC championship and came up about eight minutes short of winning Super Bowl LIV.

That improvement validated York's decision to hire Lynch and Shanahan and sign them to long-term deals after he emphasizedthroughout the hiring process how important it is for a coach and general manager to be on the same page. Now that Lynch and Shanahan are on to their second long-term contracts with the team, the Niners seem to have found exactly what York was looking for.

"Kyle deserved it," Lynch told KNBR. "I am so fortunate. It's one of the reasons I'm here. It kind of came out of the blue and I don't want to rehash that story, but I think we have a tremendous partnership."