Nevius: 3rd year of 49ers' John Lynch-Kyle Shanahan combo a crucial one

You know how it goes. You’re in a committed relationship. It lasts a year. Then two. Things get serious.

But around the start of the third year, you start to wonder:

Is this going anywhere? Do I see a future? Is this making me happy?

And yes, we are talking about the 49ers.

A six-year deal must have seemed like an eternity to GM John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan when they signed their contracts in 2017. But it turns out even eternity has a sell-by date.

And this is it.

Next Sunday, in Tampa Bay, starts a tipping point season for Team Lynch-ahan. It is Year 3 of their grand plan and results are expected.

It is not a low bar. A run at the playoffs has to be considered a bare minimum. As far as most fans are concerned, the finish-at-.500-and-show-progress card has already been played.

If they do better than making a run - securing a playoff berth - it would energize the fans (and ramp up the pressure.)

And an actual lightning-in-a-bottle drive deep into the postseason would shut people like me up for years.

None of this seems unreasonable. Lynch and Shanahan are playing with their own scholarship players. Since the season hasn’t started yet, they are currently undefeated and in first place in the NFC West. Confidence is brimming.

“I do think we’ve had a better team out here in the preseason than we’ve had in the past,” Shanahan said after Thursday’s game.

Good. Because it is all on you.

This should be the moment when the pieces fall into place and the plan begins to pay off. And, don’t be gloomy, it might.

After all, this is the duo that engineered the Miracle of St. Garoppolo. Getting Jimmy G from the Patriots is unquestionably their greatest coup.

However, watching the 49ers against the Chiefs two weeks ago - and forgive me, father, for I am about to have impure thoughts - I kinda envied KC’s gunslinger quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

Who, by the way, the 49ers could have drafted in 2017 if they hadn’t taken Solomon Thomas with the third pick of the draft. (The Chiefs traded up to get Mahomes 10th.)

And that’s my gripe about how things have gone. No complaint about the product on the field. Shanahan’s offense seems fine (although, Coach, I think the rest of the league is on to the naked bootleg.)

And I would like to take another chance to praise Shanahan for his media interactions. There’s nothing buddy-buddy about it, but he takes questions seriously and gives smart, candid answers.

The concern is team building. There seems to be a cycle of missing on a player for a position and then having to backtrack to get someone to fill the hole.

There was the debacle of drafting Reuben Foster in the first round in 2017, despite red flags, flashing lights and a British police siren. When Foster was a bust, the team turned to free agent Kwon Alexander this year, signing him to a reported four-year, $54 million contract.

Shanahan has clearly been exasperated with wide receiver Dante Pettis, after pushing the 49ers to trade up and draft him in the second round of 2018. To cover themselves, for the second year in a row, the team took a wideout in the second round, Deebo Samuel. (Who looks good.)

You know the others. Signed linebacker Malcolm Smith to a five-year, $26.5 million contract in 2017. Released him last week.

Now there is word that showcase running back Jerick McKinnon is having more of the knee problems that kept him out all last year and has been put on the injured list. It’s an ACL, which is no one’s fault, but isn’t this why the trend in the NFL is not to give a short-lived position like running back a ?four-year, $30 million contract, which is what the 49ers did in 2018?

There was, you recall, a story not long ago that 49ers scouts were unhappy that they were being overruled by Lynch and Shanahan. That Lynch might have recalled that he had a class with Solomon Thomas at Stanford and was over-enamored of him.

Or that Shanahan saw a tape of Utah running back Joe Williams (who did have some impressive runs) and insisted on picking him in the fourth round, despite character issues.

It is not that Williams was a bust. He was. It is a pattern of busts.

All of which makes this upcoming season uber-serious. Nobody knows what is going to happen. Talking after Thursday’s game, reserve quarterback Nick Mullens made an offhand comment about being ready to play “wherever I am.”

That set off a flurry of questions about his future, until kicker Robbie Gould wondered why Mullens was answering questions about that when his wife had a baby due the next day.

What? Yep, Mullens confirmed, a scheduled C-section, “bright and early” the next morning. He said it was a little boy and they intended to name him Luke.

And for a moment we forgot about football and remembered that there are more important things than winning and losing.

Right up until next Sunday afternoon.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cw.nevius@pressdemocrat.com. Twitter: @cwnevius