President of Football Operations and General Manager John Lynch and Head Coach Kyle Shanahan Press Conference

President of Football Operations and General Manager John Lynch

and Head Coach Kyle Shanahan

Press Conference – April 24, 2025

San Francisco 49ers

 

Were you at all surprised that DL Mykel Williams was there at 11 and were you expecting him to go earlier?

President of Football Operations and General Manager John Lynch: “We were. We were hanging on. Yeah, we thought there were a number of instances where he might go and it just kept, kind of kept watching the deal and it kept, other guys kept showing up. So that was a good thing for us and really, really pleased with adding Mykel to our group.”

 

What sold you guys on him specifically?

JL: “Everything. I think that like the totality of the whole process. The film is very impressive. Mykel is a big, good-looking kid in every way. He’s big, he’s tall, he’s long, he’s a great athlete, he’s tough, he’s smart, he’s versatile. He can play outside, he can play inside. He does all those things. I think the toughness, he played through an ankle injury last year and missed two games, but high-ankle sprains can be a tough deal, and to only miss two games and play as well as he did. Came through here on a 30 visit and really got a feel for the kid. And I just think all of that led us to this guy as a Niner. He fits who we are, our culture, and we pounced when he was there.”

 

You said you were hanging on. Did you try to trade up to get him?

JL: “May have. I may have, I don’t know (laughter). No, we tried and thank God they took someone else because he was still there when we picked, so we’re happy.”

 

The other day, you mentioned you had a few guys in mind for that pick. Was he the guy that you guys were really hoping to get and hoping that was available at 11? And if not, did you had some others in mind?

Head Coach Kyle Shanahan: “Yeah, definitely. That’s the hardest thing because you’ve got to have a number of guys that you really want, but you’ve definitely got to know who you’re going to take first. I just told the story on the radio, but my wife and kids, I told them who I wanted last night. I trust them, none of you guys know them (laughter). But I told them Mykel, but I was like, ‘But he is not going to, I don’t think he’s going to be there.’ So, I was telling them other people you might think about. My wife calls me this morning and says she just read a mock draft that he’s going 28th and she was worried that we were just dead wrong about everything, sort of doubting me (laughter). But we had a good idea he was going earlier. And you don’t, you don’t actually know. And so, we thought about going up and John definitely attempted for a second and I was like, ‘Good attempt man. I think we should go.’ But they shot him down. And so, we were ready to watch him go away and we were ready to go to our second and third, but he didn’t go where we thought he was going to go. And then we got to our pick and I was like, ‘Can’t believe you tried to trade there, of course he was coming (laughter).’ So that’s our thing about the draft, you never know. But we stuck there and waited for our guy and we got the guy we wanted.”

 

You talked the other day about a guy who can set the edge at defensive line, that seems to be what sort of stands out in Mykel. How did that aspect of his game sort of stand out?

JL: “Well specifically to that, I was just talking to [defensive line coach] Kris Kocurek and he said this when we went through our draft meetings, ‘I think he’s the best edge setter in college football. I think he’s the best edge setter in this draft class.’ So, if that’s the premise of one of the things that’s a hallmark of what we want in an edge guy, he does it extremely well. And I think that was impressive. Again, I mentioned the ability, he plays outside, he can come inside in the sub-rush packages and rush over guards. And then I think him being 20 years old, but having a maturity and a way about him when he came through here, we felt that. We felt his presence. They talk about it at Georgia and his leadership and all those things and you could feel it. He’s just very comfortable in his own skin and that was impressive when you put it along together with the film.”

 

What’s his skillset as a pass rusher and how much upside does he have there?

JL: “I think he’s got a lot of upside. His skillset is a guy that can rush with power, he is a good enough athlete where he’s got some wiggle. He’s extremely proficient, I think, when they run games. For that big of an athlete, I think he’s a really good stop-start. Sometimes those guys can get going, but it’s hard when a quarterback steps up, they can’t change direction. I think he can do that really well. He’s got a lot of attributes. He’s obviously got to come put them all together. But we’re excited to work with him.”

 

KS: “It’s awesome when you’ve got a guy that the more you watch him, the better he gets. And when you see how he uses his length and his arms and stuff, that stuff doesn’t jump off the tape with everyone. Like when you first turn on [DL] Nick [Bosa], you don’t, when he was at Ohio State, you don’t appreciate him the first time you watch him. But the more you watch him, you realize how much of a ninja he is with his hands and hand placement, all that stuff. And that’s how Mykel grows on you too. The more you watch him, like man, this guy is, I knew he was good, but he is a lot better than I thought. And then, love him over guards, but he also could do it outside just as well. So, to have that versatility in two areas that can help us a lot and to be as physical in the run game and to be the type of guy he is, that’s why it’s been a spot guy we were hoping for a while.”

 

This is one of those cases where the stats are the stats, but when you look at the film it’s a different case altogether?

KS: “Yeah, I’m not sure of the stats, so I really don’t know.”

 

He had 14 sacks.

KS: “14 sacks? How many pressures, what was his pressure rate? But that also goes into play, so if someone, if you see something that’s alarming and there are a bunch of stats that match it, it all stacks up. When you watch just the tape and those questions don’t come up, if someone brought it, brings it to your attention and it’s something alarming, I guarantee someone did tell me that. That doesn’t even register that much because that’s not what I see. I see a guy that’s really hard to block in the run game and the pass game. Hard to block for tackles, hard to block for guards. And I think it’s really cool when you think about college football now, half these guys coming out, I see the majority almost seem 24, 25, and we’ve got a 20-year-old who looks like a man on tape. But to look like a man on tape as a 20-year-old when you’re going against 25-year-olds, I think is a big difference. And I’m excited to see him in the NFL five years from now when he will only be 25.”

 

How difficult did the ankle make it to evaluate his season last year and also just what’s your comfort level with where he is in terms of bouncing back?

JL: “Yeah, so I think when a guy has a body of work, you almost appreciate that. You don’t like that he had an ankle injury, but you give him a ton of credit. [Reporter] Matt Barrows you just mentioned, [Georgia Co-Defensive Coordinator] Will Muschamp, Will just texted me and said this guy played, he’s tough as you know what, he just played through an ankle injury the entire year and missed two games. And he’s tough, he’s smart, he’s got huge upside, so all the things we saw. And so, when you see the previous years and all that and he’s doing great now. He just had a pro day just about seven days ago and looked really good and our docs checked him out. It was all good.”

KS: “High ankle sprains, we’ve all dealt with and they’re as nagging of an injury as you can have and most people are out a month with them, but even when you’re out a month, they still linger all year. And so, when you watch his tape, and I watched it before, I kind of see everyone, especially the top guys. And then I get in there and I hear some of this stuff and I liked him not knowing that. And then you hear that stuff and you’re like, all right, that says a lot about his character, how tough he can play, that he only missed two games because of it. But also the fact, I know he is not healthy either all the time because I know how much high ankle sprains linger and so when you see that and knowing he’s playing through that, I look at all that as a huge bonus.”

You guys have had varying degree of success trying to find a bookend for DL Nick Bosa kind of since former DL Dee Ford that had a back injury. I mean, is this, I guess particularly exciting just because, you know, to have the potential of two disruptive guys on the outside?

JL: “Absolutely, yeah. And we still need more, you know, we’ve got 10 more picks, and he won’t be the only D-Lineman. So, we’ve got to keep going. We’ve always talked about they’re kind of the engine that stirs our defense and we’ve got some work to do, we know that. But I think this guy’s a great core piece moving forward and a great bookend to Bosa, who also has the versatility along with [DL] Yetur [Gross-Matos] to kind of play throughout the line. So, I think that’s kind of exciting, all the different combinations we can have.”

 

I’m assuming that you talked to Georgia head coach Kirby Smart. What was his appraisal of his leadership and the effect that that Mykel had on the locker room in Georgia?

JL: “You know what, I am tight with Kirby, but pretty soon and early in this process it was apparent that Mykel was a guy for us. And so, we kind of laid low on that, I just I wanted, you know, like Kyle said it when we were on the radio, sometimes you don’t have a lot of, the character of this kid is impeccable. The scouts did a tremendous job delivering the information. We saw everything we liked. And so, sometimes it’s best just to let things lie and we did.”

KS: “It’s so scary to have to go find things out because usually people find out that you’re trying to find things out. And so, there’s always a risk to that. And so, if you’re asking someone something just to ask it, that doesn’t help you that much, you shouldn’t do it. That’s how people find something out through third parties and that allows people to jump in front of you. It’s just, you’ve seen, we’ve learned things too much that way. So, you know other people do that. So yeah, you want to dig into everybody, but if you could do that without putting yourself on main street to do it, that usually helps you. But sometimes you don’t have that, you’re not in that situation. You’ve got to speak to the guy, you’ve got to dig more. But that was cool, not having to do that as much with this guy.”

Is it tough to project him into your system when he played so much 4I in college? And what does it say about him that he could play that position with his body type?

JL: “I think what it helps us, you know, that’s not the style we play. Georgia, [Georgia defensive coordinator Glenn] Schumann, their coordinator, they’ve been very successful. That’s not the technique we, it’s very antithetical to the way we play. We get our guys rearing and ready to go. But I think you see enough of Mykel, particularly on third down that we see all the things that, I think, it just makes for even more excitement than when he is cut loose, watch out.”

When you talk about maturity and being comfortable in his own skin, what are some of the things that stand out to you that maybe you don’t see in other people?

JL: “I don’t know about not seeing it in other people. I just think, so you come on these 30 visits and it’s one small piece of the entire puzzle. But we have noticed that some of our best players have made a really good impression, and we try to throw some guys we have no interest in just to keep people guessing because people do study those things. People in this room study those things very well. So, we try to throw some, but you know, it is, I remember [LB] Fred Warner, his 30 visit just solidified our interest in this guy. Mykel had a very similar just, I know Kyle, we’re not in on every conversation, but we work together and having those conversations and there was just a lot of these guys, and they should be, are incredibly nervous. If he was, he hid it very well. He just seemed very comfortable in who he is, what he wants to be, and that left us really excited and I think he did a great job of just letting us feel what football means to him and why he loves the game so much.”

Did you attend any of his games and did you just meet him for the first time on that visit?

JL: “So when you go to games, you don’t, yeah, you don’t meet him. But I didn’t, I didn’t see Mykel’s game this year. No, no.”

So the first time you met him was two weeks ago?

JL: “Yeah, that was the first time I met him at the 30. Yeah.”

What did defensive coordinator Robert Saleh and Kris Kocurek have to say about him after watching his film?

KS: “The same stuff, just more aggressive and more there’s no one else we need to look at. Why are we doing anything? So, they’re good salesman.”

JL: “They’re both happy people right now.”

KS: “They’re very happy.”

We talk about the struggles of the run defense last year. How much of it was the absence of, you know, that versatile guy? Like a Jacksonville Jaguars DL Arik Armstead that it looks like you’re hoping to recreate here with Mykel?

JL: “Yeah, I think one thing that I’m always cognizant, we’ve done really well with those type of body types. Arik, I think [Tennessee Titans LB] Arden Key, [Kansas City Chiefs DL] Charles Omenihu, guys who have that flexibility, I think kind of make us better. And we like that. So, and I think in all facets, it’s not just the run game. Mykel is an excellent run player, one of the tops in college football by the numbers, by our eyes. And then in addition to it, we think he’s got a tremendous upside in his pass-rush ability as well from multiple spots.”