SantaClaraHawk":39kt9ce1 said:
NINEster":39kt9ce1 said:
The team is in shambles right now.
No run defense, no great threats on offense. I remember late in the 2014 season thinking how many awesome LBs the 49ers had and the issue we were gonna have with Bowman, Willis, and Borland having to take two spots. How exciting it would be having Aldon Smith and Aaron Lynch opposite of each other. Now we have essentially none of those guys, and not even a decent NT.
On offense, we got Torrey Smith a year too late but otherwise had a bunch of great ball catchers - Crabtree, Boldin, Stevie Johnson.
No TEs to speak of that at least scare a defense.
Kaepernick is the least of the issues, at least for the short term and winning games. Cowboys coach anonymously admitted he was happy Gabbert played and not him. They remember the last time these two teams met.
Word around the league is SF has bottom 3 level talent. There are maybe 2 or 3 QBs who could transcend that in a meaningful way.
SF has a very good pass protecting OL. They can build off of that if/when they add the playmakers.
They can draft the QB, but not have to rush him out there hopefully. I'm ok with CK out there while the team rebuilds.
They have fixed the ol compared to the Devey/pears/jmart situation but Kaep also relied on defense, which is struggling.
York fired his best head coach, promoted a good Dline coach to a position to be eventually fired, put out a qb who the gm hates...clearly it's Jed but his mom won't pull him
Yeah, all of that is true. Kap's #s have always been buoyed by a top 5 defense, which gives him enough time to make plays that keeps him as a viable starter in even the toughest of games. 2014 where defense started to slip, you saw his issues more pronounced, but nowhere as bad as the last two seasons.
You know, it raises a question I just thought of yesterday:
If it weren't for Harbaugh, how would the 2011+ era have played out?
Looking back at the post-Eddie DeBartolo era, we start with the firing of Mariucci following the 2002 season. For all intents and purposes, that is the official start of the York era IMO.
Hires Dennis Erickson. Lasts two seasons only.....understandable since 2-14 is something that hadn't been tasted since 1979, completely unacceptable in Niner land, and Erickson didn't have the pedigree of a top coach to get away with it in the modern day.
Mike Nolan hired off the Baltimore Ravens staff. Was DC at Baltimore the last 3 years prior to this hiring. A lifelong DC, and having worked with a few HoF to be with the Ravens, was tapped to create Baltimore West, which is pretty much what the modern 2005+ 49ers became. 3-4 defense, drafting monster ILBs and front 7 based talent, a dedication to running the football......all from the Ravens playbook. Despite completely different players from 2005, the 2016 49ers are essentially the same type of team (or tries to be at least). The rise up from 2007-2010 thru Harbaugh, then to Tomsula and now Kelly -- it's the same everything, just with a lot less success.
Nolan chose Alex Smith over Aaron Rodgers. It can be argued that while it was a clear mistake in hindsight, does A-Rod became the all star he is now with Mike McCarthy possibly gone after one season? (and looking at recent Rodgers, maybe he isn't immune to sucking). History showed Nolan was a smart defensive mind but sucked as a player's coach (I heard this direct from a Niner DB of that era), throwing Alex Smith under the bus unfairly. He had decent talent to work with but had a revolving door of offensive coordinators. After awhile the team stopped playing for him and he had to be fired.
Insert the Singletary promotion -- it was done in season. So following the 2008 season going into 2009, it was either extend him or get a new coach. He seemed to like the fire a new coach provides (like a Dan Campbell last year with MIA), and went down this road. Lasted about two years, canned at end of 2010, with Jim Tomsula to finish the last game.
At this point, it seems like York's decisions could be tolerated in hindsight (assuming we could overlook the firing of Steve Mariucci to begin with). I don't recall who was available in 2003 and 2005 for HCs....I believe Holmgren was available in 2005, and story has it that Paraage's moneyball ("rupeeball"?) analytics showed that Singletary would have been a better choice. Totally inexcusable if true.
I would say that starting in 2009, York should have started to be on the proverbial hotseat as an owner (in the sense he had to perform, much like it is an inferno right now).
Erickson, ok. Nolan, fine. But after that, you have to start looking at things differently.
Harbaugh was a really lucky hire. For what it's worth, there have been better owners who have not been as lucky to get such a good coach. The timing, proximity to Stanford, I guess it all lined up in a way it never did prior.
I guess now the only good thing is that since mid 2015 season, York has been put on notice by the fanbase and general media that he's absolute dog s*** as an owner. Despite the Chip Kelly hire which is an improvement over Tomsula, Baalke's garbage roster only makes it seem worse than last year. At some point even Bill Belichick can't save a team (if in theory he only could be HC and not HC/GM).
Hard to say what will happen. I guess I will start doing research on NFL owner histories of your bottom half of NFL franchises to see what's up.
I know Jacksonville has a fairly new owner, I believe their 2nd.
Unfortunately it doesn't appear that owners sell teams because they can't hack it or provide a good product -- they do it for personal reasons.
