It's still quite a shock to see wide receiver Jauan Jennings available on the free-agent market.
Currently listed as the No. 1 still-available free agent by FanSided's top-110 free agents list, the longtime San Francisco 49ers pass catcher probably should have been scooped up within the first few days of the league new year.
But no one has done so yet, leaving open the door for a possible return to the Niners where he's been at home since breaking into the league back in 2020.
In the meantime, San Francisco stockpiled its wide receiver room by adding big names like Mike Evans and Christian Kirk, which pretty much eliminated any reasonable possibility of "Third and Jauan" coming back to the Bay Area.
Then, general manager John Lynch pretty much shut the door on any remote chance of Jennings' return.
"He’ll find a good home, and Jauan will go play great football for someone," Lynch said at the annual NFL meeting over the weekend, via The Athletic's Vic Tafur. "I can’t say enough for what that guy did; when that guy stepped between the lines, man, he was a presence, and they had to deal with him, and he won us a lot of games."
Blunt.
This is pretty much the equivalent of breaking up with someone and telling them, "you'll make someone very, very happy, but it's just not going to be me."
Granted, fans have zero clue how the relationship between Jennings and the 49ers ended at the conclusion of the season, or how it sits now, for that matter.
But, in light of Jennings' non-market, it's safe to admit the Niners were correct in not panicking to re-sign him to a lucrative contract at a pre-Evans, pre-Kirk point when their wide receiver room appeared in awfully bad shape.
As Lynch said, though, some other team will get a tremendous player when it signs Jennings.
It just won't be San Francisco.