A couple days ago, an interesting nugget of information came out from Alabama head coach Nick Saban. He was on the Dan Patrick Show and was talking about the Alabama pro day from last week. He said that neither 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan or general manager John Lynch talked to him about Mac Jones. In fact, he said the only exchange they had was him saying hi to them.
This seems super odd to me. The first note I want to bring up is that Saban did steer them the wrong way with Foster in 2017 so maybe the 49ers don’t trust him and the relationship is awkward.
Even still though, it is very weird to not do this. I know if I were making a decision of my team’s quarterback for I’d hope 10-15 years, I’d want all the answers. I’d grill him on everything. Really dig into all the information. Get all I can. Ask questions. Do the whole thing. The 49ers didn’t even talk to him.
There are other strange parts to this. It doesn’t appear they talked much, if at all, to Jones either. The cameras caught these guys a lot and it was mainly on them the whole time and no signs they actually talked to Jones. That’s even more peculiar. Not talking to the guy you want to spend all of this on is very odd. I know there are other ways to communicate in these instances, but nothing is the same as an in-person interaction where it is harder to fake it. This was the big chance for the 49ers to see the most authentic Jones as a person and get the most honest answers out of Saban. They did neither.
There is another big part to this. They flew out to Columbus almost right after Jones was done throwing. They didn’t stay long. They were out of there as soon as possible. This goes back to the no interest in talking. They left mid-afternoon. They could have easily spent way longer with them and really dug into all this valuable info that they passed on.
It’s even stranger when you consider they didn’t arrive in Columbus in time to even watch Fields throw. So what was the point? Well, that should honestly not be hard to figure out.
After the cameras were shut off, the 49ers got to work on really digging into getting tons of valuable information on Fields. They probably got to talk to him for a bit and also presumably spent time with Ryan Day and others on the Ohio State staff. This is what you actually do when considering (or trying to confirm) who to take in the draft.
This strategy would also be so on-brand for the 49ers, who always do their work in secrecy. They have Lynch and Shanahan go watch Jones but only as a way to attract attention (and they drew a lot of it) while their top scouts more quietly go watch Fields. They do the bare minimum at Jones’ because it’s not a real scouting trip and they leave as soon as possible to have all the time they need to do their actual work on Fields in silence.
I think this makes a ton of sense because the events and timing of things that day were very strange and shouldn’t go without skepticism. This nugget from Saban confirmed the piece missing in that it doesn’t sound like Shanahan and Lynch had very much real interest in Jones while they were there, giving credence to the idea it was only a trip to attract attention and smokescreen what they were actually doing.
Something similar occurred in 2019 when Lynch went to Quinnen Williams’ pro day and sent top scout Adam Peters to Bosa’s and they took Bosa (you can usually look at where Peters goes to actually get a glimpse at the 49ers intentions). Where Lynch goes doesn’t always mean much more than media attention. He’s attended some that they’ve gone onto take the player but most times that doesn’t happen. Lynch isn’t on pro day visits to scout. He’s there to let people know he’s there so people purposefully pay attention.
It’s funny how this whole theory in my head came together based on that little piece of extra information. I had always thought some things were off that day as I saw it unfold, but I couldn’t figure it out. Now I can. I also think this is just another sign that points heavily in favor of the 49ers selecting Justin Fields with the 3rd overall pick.
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