John Lynch put a clear price on Mac Jones. The 49ers general manager said the team would have to be really motivated to trade him, even as Jones remains in Mac Jones trade deadline rumors.
That matters now because Jones is back in the conversation after a 2025 season in which he appeared in 11 games and made eight starts for the 49ers. He completed 69.6 percent of his passes for 2,151 yards, with 13 touchdowns and six interceptions, numbers that only sharpen the question of whether another team will push hard enough to pry him away.
Jones has been circling the trade market since he filled in for Brock Purdy last year in eight starts, and the 49ers have reason to know exactly what they have. He signed a two-year deal with the 49ers in March, and Lynch also said the club is very comfortable keeping him, which tells you the discussion is not about whether Jones can play but whether the right offer arrives.
The bar appears high. A team would likely need to offer a late day two or early day three pick to make a Jones trade worth it for the 49ers, a threshold that fits the way Lynch framed the situation without making it sound like the club is eager to move him. Jones, 28, is also headed for unrestricted free agency after the season, so any deal would have to balance the immediate value of a draft pick against the chance that he leaves in March anyway.
That is where the friction lives. Jones could still matter to the 49ers even if he never starts another game for them, because his departure this offseason could help their compensatory pick formula. He was the No. 15 overall pick by the Patriots in 2021, later had his fifth-year option declined by the Jaguars in the 2024 offseason, and was entering the fourth year of his Patriots deal when he was traded to the Jaguars for a sixth-round pick, a path that has left him in the same place again: useful enough to keep, movable only for the right price.
If another team wants him, it will have to decide whether Jones is worth that late-day draft capital now or whether it is better to wait and see whether the 49ers hold him through the deadline. Lynch’s answer makes the most important point plain: the 49ers are not shopping Jones for anything less than a deal that makes immediate sense.
