With NFL training camp commencing, San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan spoke with the media.
Kyle Shanahan’s stint as 49ers coach has included some contentious contract disputes. The tension about re-signing receiver Brandon Aiyuk has been no exception.
Fortunately for San Francisco, the club has found a way to retain the majority of those players seeking large contracts, with one significant exception.
In 2020, the 49ers traded defensive tackle DeForest Buckner to the Indianapolis Colts, which Shanahan previously described as an extremely tough scenario.
“The Buckner thing is one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through,” Shanahan stated on Tuesday’s episode of “The TK Show” with Tim Kawakami. “I adore DeForest Buckner. We did not want to get rid of him at all.”
However, with so many players deserving of large contracts, this is an unavoidable issue—a good one, as Fred Warner puts it. Shanahan explained that in some circumstances, such as Buckner’s, the benefits of a trade outweigh re-signing a star. Rather than keeping Buckner, the 49ers decided to keep Arik Armstead and Jimmie Ward, as well as a first-round selection.
“That makes sense from an organizational perspective. I don’t want to lose Buck — he’s everything you could want in a Niner — but those are the tough decisions you have to make,” Shanahan added. “You may choose any way, but I understand your decision. This has nothing to do with Buck. It all came down to what we were attempting to develop and how many more individuals we could recruit.”
Shanahan’s role as a head coach is to assist assess a player’s worth while keeping that individual content inside the club. That balance is difficult to achieve, and it is compounded by the ties that have developed between players and coaches.
