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John Lynch on effort against Colts: ‘That’s not good enough, that’s not who we want to be’

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Through the first four weeks of the regular season, 49ers’ general manager John Lynch was largely encouraged by the direction of his team.

While San Francisco lost all four contests, he was pleased with the team’s effort and felt as if a young 49ers’ squad was improving week by week.

On Friday morning, Lynch joined the Murph & Mac Show on KNBR, and his tone changed. Lynch is still extraordinarily confident in the future of the 49ers as a whole, but he was disappointed by San Francisco’s effort in a 26-23 overtime loss to Indianapolis on Sunday. Quite simply, Lynch said he felt the 49ers were the better team, and they didn’t perform as such.

“This wasn’t up to our standard,” Lynch said. “Frankly, we felt like we were a better team but one thing I’ve learned about this league in my experiences is that doesn’t matter. You’ve got to go show that you’re the better team. You’ve got to go make plays when the game is on the line. You have to execute, you have to do fundamental things and just thought we had a lot of breakdowns in that game.”

With a pair of games ahead against potential playoff contenders in the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys, Lynch said he’s well aware the 49ers’ effort needs to improve this week. Lynch said if the 49ers plan on reversing their current fortune, effort is one aspect of the game that is entirely in their own hands.

“I felt like we left a little on that field the other day,” Lynch said. “That’s not good enough. That’s not who we want to be. That’s not what we want to be and that needs to change. Particularly going into Washington with a very good football team in Washington. If we want to change our fortunes, we have to be better than that.”

Lynch said the 49ers’ struggles are similar to the ones he experienced as a player with Tampa Bay in the early 1990s, and he said that in times like these, San Francisco can’t leave games in the hands of refs or give opponents’ more opportunities than they’ll earn on their own. If the 49ers are able to clean up their mistakes, Lynch thinks his team can dig itself out of the hole it’s in. To do that, Lynch said players need to respond the right way, and he said he’ll be watching his guys closely.

“You don’t love adversity,” Lynch said. “We wish we were 4-1, 5-0 but we aren’t and I think another thing I’ve learned in my experiences just in life, let alone the NFL, this is when you see a lot about the guys. It’s a great litmus test for who are guys we want to move forward with. How they respond in situations like this. Yes we’ve had tough losses, yes we feel like at times, it’s so eerily similar to when I was in Tampa in the early 90s, you feel like everyone is against you.”

To listen to Murph & Mac’s full interview with John Lynch, click the podcast link below. To listen to Lynch’s comments on the 49ers’ effort against the Colts, skip ahead to the 1:20 mark.