49ers General Manager John Lynch admitted interest in Josh Gordon when the Browns were looking for a trade partner earlier this week. Ultimately, though, San Francisco backed away from the talented but troubled receiver.
With Khalil Mack, the 49ers were all in.
Coach Kyle Shanahan admitted the 49ers’ interest in trading for the pass rusher when Oakland began shopping him before the season began. The Jets and Packers were other reported suitors.
“We went pretty hard. We went real hard,” Shanahan said Friday, via Matt Barrows of The Athletic.
The Raiders liked the Bears’ offer the best, so the 49ers get to face Mack on Dec. 23.
But the 49ers will continue to seek “extreme difference-makers” to add to their team.
“When you’re talking about people who are extreme difference-makers, you do everything you can to try to add those type of guys to your team, especially when it came to the first guy you mentioned with the pass rush and everything,” Shanahan said, via quotes distributed by the team. “Those are legit things that I hope everyone in the league would look into hard. Then, you’ve got to think about salary cap. Thinking about how you’re going to balance contracts, what that means not just right now, but what it means next year, who you can re-sign next year, who you have to lose, how you’re going to spend the draft next year. There’s so many more things that go into it than just, ‘Is that guy a good player or not?’”