Somebody had to take the 49ers GM job. Somebody. Had to. Right?

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49ers’ Nick Bosa ready to get after ‘the enemy’ in legendary rusher Frank Gore I mean, just how far could Jed York, Paraag Marathe and presumptive coach Kyle Shanahan take this bizarre, multi-week search before burning through all plausible candidates, getting to the brink, scratching their heads and just deciding to hire… whoever?

We just found out; the 49ers have picked former safety John Lynch as their new GM, and let’s just politely say that, until we learn more, he doesn’t quite fall in the “very plausible” side of the spectrum.

Yes, this got weird–through all the 49ers’ PR announcements about interviews, re-interviews and those who no longer would get interviewed… and through all the guys who said no thanks.

We found out that all the normal candidates either wanted no part of this search or didn’t fit with Shanahan or somehow didn’t meet York and Marathe’s standards, whatever they might be.

So the 49ers shocked the NFL world and pulled off one of their most surprising hires in years–they’ve reportedly given Lynch a six-year (!) contract despite Lynch having zero personnel or NFL management experience… after Lynch himself reportedly called up Shanahan a few weeks ago to volunteer for the job.

You can see that it looks like the 49ers ran out of ideas here. You can suggest that Lynch might be an excellent football guy and an interesting candidate, but that there’s a reason he hasn’t exactly been on the top of recent GM lists.

He hasn’t worked with and learned from the best–Bill Belichick, Ozzie Newsome, John Elway, Ted Thompson.

He hasn’t put in the up-the-ladder gruntwork the way Reggie McKenzie or Thomas Dimitroff or Scot McCloughan did.

He hasn’t been a GM-in-training–like Chris Ballard, who turned down a chance to interview with the 49ers and just took the Indianapolis GM job.

Lynch is just the guy who popped his name into the discussion at exactly the right time–when York, Marathe and Shanahan were clearly not feeling good about the finalists they had left (George Paton and Terry McDonough)–and he has the charisma and smarts to give the 49ers a shot at this.

Lynch was a great NFL safety, went to Stanford, has been a solid broadcaster for years, but let’s face it, he had two main qualifications for this job:

1) He wanted it, and…

2) The 49ers ran out of candidates.

Again, this does not mean that Lynch will fail. York told BANG’s Cam Inman that he was impressed by Lynch’s communication skills and his link to Bill Walsh from Lynch’s Stanford days and that he would put together a good staff (maybe including former Tampa exec Mark Dominik).

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Jed York keeps saying the 49ers need to “re-establish a championship culture,” and hey, maybe they’ll luck into something great with Lynch and Shanahan. But I emphasize “luck,” because there is no way to really know this until they do their jobs–these jobs, for the first time in their lives.

And… nothing is more important than finding the 49ers’ next quarterback, and the new GM they hire is… a former safety with zero personnel experience.

I know, we can all assume that Shanahan will be the main player in personnel decisions, and he has a lot of QB experience, so he’ll be picking the QB.

But the GM is the guy who’ll be running the field operation, doing the legwork, and wouldn’t you want your GM at least somewhat knowledgeable about the QB position?

And there’s this: The last guy who got a GM job without any previous executive experience… was Matt Millen with Detroit, and that is not a reference I believe Jed will be making at the introductory presser.

The new Matt Millen working for the current Jed York and with a rookie head coach handed one of the worst rosters in the league.

Seems like a perfect formula!

By the way, it was always a joke that Jed was trying to sell that Shanahan might not get full power, but if Shanahan doesn’t announce that he’s the No. 1 guy at his introduction, then this whole operation will be ready to collapse.

Either Shanahan has it or he doesn’t and if the 49ers try to hide that, there’s an enormous sign of impending confusion and back-biting, but I guess this head-spinning search was actually the first sign.

This is all just proof that Shanahan didn’t have one or two slam-dunk GM choices, or that ones he suggested didn’t want the job, or that he just wants this job so much that he hadn’t fully thought through the GM part.

And more and more that the 49ers are just winging it (again), the way they did when they hired Chip Kelly last year and convinced themselves he’d be great pals with Trent Baalke, or the way they did two years ago when they hired Jim Tomsula to replace Jim Harbaugh and presumed that the 49ers would only get better.

So they went with a guy who has no previous 49ers ties, who has no personnel experience, no direct ties to Shanahan, but who is smart enough to learn on the job and then we’ll see what happens.

49ers fans are allowed to wonder: If Jed and Paraag are willing to take this kind of leap of faith with John Lynch, why wouldn’t they even consider somebody like Steve Young or Brent Jones? Guys with incredibly deep ties to the greatest days of this franchise?

Who were actually coached by Bill Walsh, as 49ers?

It’s a good question. York and Marathe were so desperate at the end of this search, they skipped over a bunch of things, they almost ran out of candidates, they kept Lynch’s name out of their leaks (that’s something!), and they took a flier.

They have been wrong many times before. It’s possible they got this one right, but they cannot know for sure right now, they’re just guessing, and hoping, and praying.