The 49ers made a major move ahead of the trade deadline in 2022 by acquiring running back Christian McCaffrey and they made another big splash on the other side of the ball this year.
Defensive end Chase Young was the prize this time around and General Manager John Lynch said on a Wednesday conference call that the team had other discussions before moving ahead with the deal for Young.
“Because I felt like it was the best deal to be had,” Lynch said, via 49ersWebzone.com. “We had a number of conversations, and we’ve always been of the philosophy that it starts up front, and that was the deal that made the most sense for us.”
Lynch went on to explain that Young made the most sense because he’s a “complete player” that the Niners believe will help get their defense back on track.
“In the NFL, you’ve got to earn the right to rush the passer, and you do that by playing the run well, and we’ve not been good enough there,” Lynch said. “So I think when we start doing the little things right, that gives you the opportunities, and ultimately, I think we’re going to get this thing right and all those things. But that definitely is true. We’ve got to shore that up. It starts with stopping the run, and we haven’t been doing that well enough, so we got to do that. And then we got ample ability and options as pass rushers to start to pull this together.”
Young will start getting up to speed during the bye week and we should get a look at how his transition has gone against the Jaguars in Week 10.