Niner Noise
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San Francisco 49ers: John Lynch, Kyle Shanahan Signing Free Agents to Teach Scheme to Rest of Roster

By Peter Panacy

Mar 1, 2017; Indianapolis, IN, USA; San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan speaks to the media during the 2017 NFL Combine at the Indiana Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 1, 2017; Indianapolis, IN, USA; San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan speaks to the media during the 2017 NFL Combine at the Indiana Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports /
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Mar 2, 2017; Indianapolis, IN, USA; San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch speaks to the media during the 2017 NFL Combine at the Indiana Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 2, 2017; Indianapolis, IN, USA; San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch speaks to the media during the 2017 NFL Combine at the Indiana Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports /

Tying It All Together

As our good friend over at 49ers Webzone, Al Sacco, noted, this is going to take time. San Francisco’s roster isn’t going to be overhauled overnight:

To achieve this, Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch are largely bringing in free agents capable of teaching younger players, potentially draftees, the nuances of both Shanahan and Saleh’s systems.

It reminds me — for you history majors, like me, out there — of when George Washington brought in Baron Von Steuben to teach the Continental Army European-style drills and tactics during the American Revolution.

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Von Steuben would teach a core group what to do. And those soldiers, in turn, would pass those lessons onto others until the entire army knew the tactics.

It must have worked. The U.S. won the Revolutionary War, right?

The 49ers are going through their own revolution, I suppose. It’s going to take time as well, which helps us make sense of some of the free-agent pickups.

And as the months and weeks count down to Week 1 of the 2017 season, we can hope the Niners’ depleted roster is revamped, educated and reinforced en route to the quest for a sixth Lombardi Trophy at some point down the not-so-distant road.