Adding a Bosa, Purdy’s deal date, and more

Call this the John Lynch moment.

The 49ers’ general manager, of course, has been one of the franchise’s busiest and most important figures since he and Kyle Shanahan took over the football operation in February 2017. But these next few months figure to be some of Lynch’s busiest and most important.

This offseason already feels like a pivot point for this era. Deebo Samuel is recently gone, there are loud rumblings of a financial pullback amid the start of crucial negotiations with Brock Purdy, the 49ers hold the 11th pick in the draft, and Shanahan and Lynch head into their ninth season together dying to erase the memories of last year’s 6-11 tumble. Really, if you look closely, this offseason was set up as a pivot point.

And Lynch is set up to be the key player — he’s the only guy who has the relationships to hammer out compromises across the franchise and who can keep this tied together from ownership to the financial side to Shanahan’s coaching staff to the locker room. Lynch has already been doing this stuff. He’s got a lot more of it coming right now.

In some ways, this situation is relatively comparable to the months leading up to the doomed split with Jim Harbaugh after the 2014 season — ownership was tired of him and more tired of spending so much money without a Super Bowl title; Harbaugh wasn’t thrilled to feel the squeeze and let everybody know it. Shanahan isn’t nearly as combustible as Harbaugh, but there are some similarities to their driven, grinding, mostly successful 49ers tenures and anguished losses. Big difference: Harbaugh was stuck with Trent Baalke as his GM and Shanahan has Lynch — which is one large reason this era has already lasted double the length as the Harbaugh run.

Baalke worked against Harbaugh. And York sided with Baalke. There will be no such back-stabbing in this situation, but there are pressures. The 49ers have to win this season. York, Lynch, and Shanahan have to figure out how to keep the talent level up while dropping the cash spending. They have to do it together. And the best — probably the only — way this can happen is if Lynch is the buffer, bargainer, brains, and chief diplomatic fixer.

With that in mind, let’s fire off some predictions about the 49ers’ biggest decisions this offseason, obviously knowing that trading Deebo for a fifth-round pick (and taking a huge dead-cap hit but saving a big chunk of cash) has already kicked things off with a bang.