If there's one night of the NFL regular season that's usually pretty quiet, that would be Christmas Eve, but that wasn't the case on Friday night thanks to 49ers general manager John Lynch. At some point on Friday evening, Lynch 'liked' a disparaging tweet about 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
After watching Garoppolo throw two interceptions in a 20-17 upset loss to the Titans, a fan tweeted to Lynch and asked him to "Leave Jimmy in Nashville."
Fans tweet negative things to Lynch all the time, so the tweet itself wasn't notable, the notable part is that Lynch ended up "liking" the tweet.
— Grant Cohn (@grantcohn) December 25, 2021
After the "like" popped up in Lynch's Twitter feed, many people started to assume that maybe he was ready to move on from Garoppolo after watching his QB play an ugly game against the Titans. However, it appears that's not actually the case. Later on Christmas Eve night, Lynch shared a tweet that offered a full explanation for why he "liked" the disparaging tweet about Garoppolo.
According to Lynch, the entire thing was an accident.
Apparently - while in Christmas Eve Mass w my Family - I accidentally and unknowingly Liked a Tweet. Never intended to and remain a huge believer in Jimmy. Merry Christmas to everyone.
— John Lynch (@JohnLynch49ers) December 25, 2021
In Lynch's defense, it's very easy to accidentally "like" a tweet on Twitter. If you're scrolling through tweets and accidentally hit the heart icon -- which is very easy to do -- then the tweet will show up in your "likes" section. On the other hand, not every fan was buying his explanation.
So you accidentally opened Twitter, filled with millions of tweets, and ACCIDENTALLY liked the one that was trashing Jimmy G.
— gosuprime (@gosuprime021) December 25, 2021
Wow. That's unlucky, sir.
So John Lynch had Twitter open at church, huh? That’s what we’re supposed to believe? 😂😂😂
— Femi Abebefe (@FemiAbebefe) December 25, 2021
Maybe he should have just said he was hacked. Also, if Lynch would have just turned his phone off in church, then none of this would have happened.
Although Lynch insists that's he a "huge believer" in Jimmy, he clearly isn't that big of a believer or the 49ers wouldn't have traded up to the third spot in the 2021 NFL Draft to select Trey Lance. That being said, Lynch did offer some support for Garoppolo in the days leading up to the Titans game.
"He's running our system exactly how we want," Lynch told KNBR on Tuesday, via NBC Sports Bay Area. "The thing I love about Jimmy, he doesn't care if we run it 40 times, throw it 40 times -- just wants to win."
Wanting to win is a great characteristic for an NFL quarterback to have, but if that QB starts to lose, that opens the door for people to ask questions, which is why a lot of people were asking questions about whether the 49ers were getting ready to move on from Garoppolo after Lynch's "accidental" like on Friday night.
