One year ago, on Oct. 31, the 49ers acquired Jimmy Garoppolo from the Patriots for a second-round draft pick. It was one of the blockbuster trades of the 2017 season.
It also was a move that was part of a long-term plan that gave the team a franchise quarterback for years to come.
As this season’s trade deadline looms just a few days away, the 49ers will keep to their plan of building for the long term. That means they will look for pieces to help the team, but not at the cost of the future.
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Both general manager John Lynch and coach Kyle Shanahan have been consistent in expressing that they are always looking at ways to make the 49ers better while keeping the future in focus.
“We’re always looking for things to improve our team,” Shanahan said. “I think the hardest thing, the thing we want to be the strongest with, everyone would love a quick fix right now. I know I would, I know our players would, I know John and the personnel staff would.
“But it’s not just about a quick fix. We’re dedicated to try to win this Sunday. But we’re also not going to just do something that makes us feel better today that hurts us for the future.”
One player the 49ers confirmed that they had interest in was pass rusher Khalil Mack, whom the Raiders traded to the Bears at the beginning of the season.
San Francisco 49ers
“We were extremely aggressive,” Lynch said. ”We'd have been foolish not to. The guy's a spectacular player.”
In the end, the price for Mack was too high, and the 49ers stuck to their guns in thinking about the big picture.
This year's NFL trade deadline is Oct. 30 at 1 p.m. PT. Shanahan said it’s business as usual in the league regarding the team’s interest in players outside of the building for potential trades, and vice versa.
“I’m not in charge of those phones,” Shanahan said. “But, I mean, people talk all the time around the league. People are doing that every single day right now. They’ll be doing it up to the trade deadline. It picks up more as it gets closer, but that’s stuff that goes on every day, all day. A lot of it is just talk. Sometimes, it becomes real.
"We’ll always listen. We’re always looking to try to improve our team. We’re always calling and seeing if there’s anything out there that we haven’t heard, also. Like I said, our philosophy with that is we’re always trying to improve right now, but we’re also not going to do that to risk anything for the future.”