The San Francisco 49ers were one of a handful of teams in the running to acquire Josh Gordon from the Cleveland Browns earlier this week. General manager John Lynch himself admitted that they had called the Browns up about a potential deal for the mercurial wideout, who also had an interest in going to San Francisco.
But while Gordon ended up going to the Patriots, the 49ers apparently weren’t broken up about it. As John Lynch revealed during a radio interview on KNBR, the 49ers decided against going all in on Gordon after doing some further digging into the troubled receiver.
“I think in that situation, like any situation, if there’s a chance to improve your team, you always look into it,” Lynch said, via Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle. “But in certain situations, particularly when you have knowledge of a player, you sit back and you weigh it. Sometimes it’s intriguing. But then, . . . particularly when you have knowledge of someone, the more you look into it: You know what — we’re going to stay away from that.”
Several members of the 49ers coaching staff, including head coach Kyle Shanahan, have some first-hand knowledge of Gordon during their time with him in the Browns organization. The inside information they provided likely played a big part in the 49ers’ decision-making process about potentially adding Gordon to the team.
“They were with him in Cleveland, and so they knew the player very well,” Lynch said. “Obviously, [he’s] an unbelievable talent. Obviously, had a lot of issues. So you try to weigh that, and you kind of have to say, ‘OK, what’s it worth, number one? Number two, is it something . . . we’ve got a really good thing in our building in terms of the guys and the type of guys we’ve got in here. And do you want to mess with that?”
The 49ers certainly could have used another big-time receiver with Josh Gordon’s undoubted talent. But few could blame John Lynch and co. for having reservations about him, especially given his checkered history, and ultimately deciding against making a stronger push. 49ers legend Jerry Rice shared similar concerns about Gordon and should be pleased that the team chose to back away from their interest.
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