The San Francisco 49ers will travel to Tampa, Florida to play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday. It will be somewhat of a homecoming for John Lynch, the general manager of the 49ers. His first 11 NFL seasons were spent playing safety for the Buccaneers, with whom he eventually won a Super Bowl and into whose Ring of Honor he was inducted.
Lynch went on to play his final four NFL seasons with the Denver Broncos and remained such an impactful player that he was also inducted into that team's Ring of Honor.
49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan was the quarterbacks coach with the Houston Texans in 2007 when Lynch was playing his final season with the Broncos. Shanahan didn't become an offensive coordinator until the next year, but he saw enough of Lynch's playing days to know how special of a player he was.
Lynch was named among the 25 semifinalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2019 this week. It was the seventh time the former NFL safety made the list. He was among the 15 finalists eligible for last year's class but did not make the cut to the final eight.
Shanahan joined KNBR on Wednesday night and shared what being inducted into the Hall of Fame would mean to Lynch.
"He won't say it, but I know it means something to him because he worked a long time for it and he deserves it," Shanahan said on the "Tolbert & Lund" show. "I know he's gotten a lot of recognition because everyone knows how good of a player he was, but that Hall of Fame is special.
"I hope it happens for him this year. Regardless, it's a matter of time, in my opinion."
In addition to being part of a Super Bowl championship team, Lynch was a nine-time Pro Bowl selection and a three-time first-team All-Pro during his illustrious 15-year NFL career. During that time, he registered 1,051 combined tackles, 26 interceptions, 13 sacks, and 16 forced fumbles, according to ESPN.
In case anyone from the selection committee was listening, Shanahan made a strong case for Lynch's induction into the Hall of Fame.
"He was as physical a presence as there was in the league, at the time," Shanahan said. "I don't know how many people are in two Ring of Honors in two different stadiums.
"He's in there at Tampa Bay, which everyone knows he won a Super Bowl and played at a very high level on one of the best defenses of all time the year they won the Super Bowl. They were a top defense every other year he was there.
"Then he goes to Denver, and they get one game away from the Super Bowl. This is in the last, I want to say three or four years of his career where people thought he was done. All he did was go there and go to the Pro Bowl every single year he played. He got them to a 13-3 team where they lost in the AFC Championship Game to the Steelers and ended up finishing his career there in the Ring of Honor.
"To be that big of a deal in two different places, have the numbers to go with it, with the recognition of the Pro Bowls and the Super Bowl, I don't see why it's a hard decision, and I think it's just a matter of time for him."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Shanahan below.