Disingenuous Jed & his inhouse 49ers hire.
Author: AnnKillion | Filed under: UncategorizedWe’re all waiting for the Jim Harbaugh shoe to drop. And it better drop. Jed York better have Harbaugh in the bag (as opposed to thinking he has him in the bag which is something else entirely).
Meanwhile, we’re left with the Trent Baalke hire. Which is so much more of the same for the 49ers that it’s ridiculous.
A week ago, Jed stood in front of the Bay Area media and made it clear that he would hire a general manager. He said he would conduct a search. He implied that he was looking for expertise.
It was a fun game of charades.
Within 24 hours word had leaked that he would hire his in-house candidate Baalke. A man who is getting his job the way everyone with the 49ers gets his job: by being in the building when someone was fired.
Baalke may be a fine talent evaluator – though we have no way of knowing since the 2010 draft evaluation was certainly largely in place before Scot McCloughan left. But he works for Jed and Paraag Marathe. He has been in the 49ers organization for seven dysfunctional years – arriving in Mike Nolan’s first year. He wanted the job – who doesn’t want to be one of 32 general managers in the NFL? So he wasn’t about to tell Jed, “Hey, you’re doing it wrong.”
Jed, in the announcement of Baalke’s hiring, said “In recent months I’ve been very impressed with his knowledge and leadership.” But how much do you trust Jed to do the evaluating? How much does he know about effective NFL knowledge and leadership. Baalke isn’t exactly like John McVay coming in.
This is the problem with the 49ers. They think they’re doing it right. Jed is convinced the only – the only - issue with the team was coaching. Everything else inside is hunky-dory. Except that it’s not.
“They have the worst structure in football, or at least very close to it, with a couple of young guys that believe they have all the answers,” said one longtime NFL insider.
Now, if Harbaugh is The Answer, the Baalke hire won’t matter. Cocksure Harbaugh is not about to take orders from Baalke. He has his own contacts and sources in the NFL and will make his only decisions. He’ll likely look at Baalke as an executive assistant. And if Harbaugh turns out to be a very good NFL coach, everything will be great.
And while I believe Harbaugh has a better chance than most college coaches to be a very good NFL coach (extensive NFL pedigree, inside knowledge and contacts; coming from a program where he can’t just load up on blue-chippers at every position but is forced to more carefully evaluate and select talent), that’s no sure thing.
On the face of it, the 49ers are just repeating their past: Falling in love with a untested candidate as head coach and handing him control of the organization, bypassing Super Bowl winners who are available, while staffing the front office with yes-men who won’t challenge the inept 49ers culture.
Harbaugh better be in the bag. And he better turn out to be The Answer. It’s the 49ers only hope.
seems like you and dan brown are the only people in the bay area that understand what’s going on.
i too am not impressed with the baalke hire but my real issue is the lying. i was under the impression that the search for the gm would be an expansive search; instead, he hired the guy that was standing right beside him.
although i like harbaugh, i’m not a big fan of rookie coaches that have the ability to make personnel decisions.
it seems to me like the decisions made over the last couple of days are a continuation of the same dysfunction that has plagued the organization over the last ten years.
great post ann.
It’s not just the convenient GM hire or the novice head coach. It’s the GM hire without thoroughly exploring established, well-connected options, people who have been around successful organizations and know how they’re run. And it’s the college coaching flavor of the month, knowing that only two college coaching stars in the last 30 years have ever done anything of note in the NFL; throw in Bill Walsh and it’s still a very low on-base percentage.
The 49ers problem isn’t just kids-among-grownups management. It’s more than a roster full of Josh Zeiglers and Dominique Morgans and Shawntae Goldsons — marginal players who give no opponent pause. And it isn’t just anachronistic training methods and poor game planning and no clock management and “I’m done with that” approaches to problems and dropping your pants the first day on the job. It’s all those things, wrapped in a culture of stumbling in the dark — or created by it.
Promoting the guy who helped create that culture and trying to paper it over with a glitzy coaching hire do nothing to change it.
Ann,
Enjoy your writing on si.com/csnbayarea.com and just found this via twitter.
That being said, are they any better canidates than baalke? All the other people who are being rumored as canidates (lombardi, sunquist etc) are just re-treads. Maybe there is a nice dynamic between Jed and Baalke that the public doesn’t see. we have to remember that they are going to be working hand in hand. While baalke is unproven and has only seen the niners throw draft after draft class down the drain, he can learn from other people (mainly scot) mistakes.
As for Jed, us niner fans are stuck with him for what looks like the rest of my adult life, as I am just a few years younger than Jed. So we don’t have much of a choice in trusting him, and it seems like its going to be trial and error (in regards to our power structure, GM and HC) until Jed gets one right. Yes Jed shouldn’t have said “nationwide search” for the GM when it looked like he was going to hire from within anyways, but he is young and doesn’t know when to shut up. (how about that playoff guarantee jed?)
I believe our only chance is that we hit a home run with harbaugh and he flexes that intellectual muscle and turns this ship around.
Thanks
Lets get one thing straight, Jim Harbaugh wanted to stay in Palo Alto, and the Bay Area. Because of HIS WIFE. The Harbaugh’s have small children, and school aged Kids; so his wife wanted to remain in the Bay Area, so that their lives were not disrupted.
Jim also wanted to be an NFL Head Coach, the nearest vacancy was in his own backyard. So despite Trent Baalke, and Jed York, Harbaugh would have signed on with the 49ers to be their Head Coach. Now lets see if Harbaugh can deal with the Yorks, and the 49ers FO dysfunction.
Now according to Scott Ostler Jed is a “Genius” excuse me…at what? The York Family has screwed the 49ers up so bad, it will take years to get over their ineptitude. Get A grip Scott, the Yorks do one thing right for once, that may, or may not turn out right, and out local Media is ready to crown the Boy Wonder “Genius?” Child Please, give us Fans a effing break!
Ann, keep up the good work, and when you see ineptitude please for the sake of the fans…EXPOSE IT!!!!
By the way Aaron Rodgers is in the NFC Championship Game, thats another York screw up!!!
Lets get one thing straight, Jim Harbaugh wanted to stay in Palo Alto, and the Bay Area. Because of HIS WIFE. The Harbaugh’s have small children, and school aged Kids; so his wife wanted to remain in the Bay Area, so that their lives were not disrupted.
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Jim also wanted to be an NFL Head Coach, the nearest vacancy was in his own backyard. So despite Trent Baalke, and Jed York, Harbaugh would have signed on with the 49ers to be their Head Coach. Now lets see if Harbaugh can deal with the Yorks, and the 49ers FO dysfunction.
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Now according to Scott Ostler Jed is a “Genius” excuse me…at what? The York Family has screwed the 49ers up so bad, it will take years to get over their ineptitude. Get A grip Scott, the Yorks do one thing right for once, that may, or may not turn out right, and our local Media is ready to crown the Boy Wonder “Genius?” Child Please, give us Fans a effing break!
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Ann, keep up the good work, and when you see ineptitude please for the sake of the fans…EXPOSE IT!!!!
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By the way Aaron Rodgers is in the NFC Championship Game, thats another York screw up!!!
escorts in marble arch…
[...]Disingenuous Jed & his inhouse 49ers hire. – Ann Killion[...]…
hmmm. Can’t be right all the time anne!
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