John Lynch admits he didn’t know what he was doing when the 49ers first hired him as General Manager. So one of the people he leaned on to learn the job was former Buccaneers teammate Martin Mayhew, who spent 15 years in the Lions’ front office, including parts of eight seasons as G.M.
“He’s been of tremendous value to me,” Lynch told Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “Elephant in the room, I hadn’t done this before, and I know what I know and I felt like I had some strengths and my experiences would come in handy, both as a player and as a broadcaster you get exposed to a lot. But there were some things that I just didn’t know, hadn’t been exposed to, so I knew I had to surround myself with good people.
“And one of the things we first talked about with [49ers CEO Jed York] was finding a guy who’s been a General Manager who’s sat in that seat, and it took me about 10 minutes to, ‘I’ve got the guy, if I can get him.’ I played with him and so I trust him implicitly.”
Lynch, who played in the secondary with Mayhew from 1993-96 in Tampa Bay, hired his friend as the 49ers’ senior personnel executive. Lynch has used Mayhew as his sounding board and mentor.
“He was one of the guys that I tried to pattern the way I went about my work,” Lynch said.