San Francisco 49ers: Front Office Egos Destroying Franchise’s Proud Legacy
By Kevin Saito
Once upon a time, the San Francisco 49ers were the gold standard of the NFL. They were the organization that every other team in the league was chasing. They were they organization every other team envied. But given the way this offseason has shaken out, it is incredibly apparent that those days are long over.
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Today’s 49ers seem to have more in common with the Cleveland Browns than they do with those proud San Francisco teams of the past. And that thing they have in common seems to be utter dysfunction.
To say that this offseason has been tumultuous for the 49ers would be an incredibly gross understatement. Perhaps more fitting words might include “disastrous,” or “catastrophic.” There was a time when players would have killed for the opportunity to wear the red and gold. Today though, they seem to be having a lot of trouble keeping hold of the players they do have.
It’s pretty telling when Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive tackle Gerald McCoy – somebody who plays in a different division, on a different coast – feels compelled to chime in on the chaos and turmoil surrounding the 49ers.
Investigation has to be coming for 49ers!! No way that many people from the same team retire coincidentally. What is going on in San Fran?
— Gerald McCoy (@Geraldini93) June 5, 2015
It was a funny piece of ribbing by McCoy, but there is no no real investigation is needed. No, the answer to what’s ailing San Francisco at the moment are the egos within the front office – specifically, those of Jed York and Trent Baalke. And given how large the egos of those two men have seemingly become since the end of the 2014 season – especially after running former HC Jim Harbaugh out of town on a rail – it’s amazing that they can fit inside Levi’s stadium.
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Following a loss to the Buccaneers in the divisional round of the 2002 playoffs, the 49ers fell on some very hard times. They went eight straight seasons without posting a winning record, averaging just under 6 wins a season over that span.
But in 2011, they brought Jim Harbaugh in to run the show, and he immediately turned San Francisco’s fortunes around. In four seasons at the helm, Harbaugh’s teams won 44 games – to put that in real perspective, over the previous eight seasons before he became San Francisco’s head coach, the 49ers had posted 46 total wins.
Harbaugh took San Francisco to three straight NFC title games, one Super Bowl, and came within a Richard Sherman fingertip of a second Super Bowl berth.
Harbaugh’s fourth season was his ultimate downfall as amid a rash of injuries, players with off the field problems, a serious regression from QB Colin Kaepernick, a rash of leaks from within the 49ers organization detailing a divided locker room, and a deteriorating relationship with the front office, San Francisco posted an 8-8 record and missed the playoffs altogether.
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In what seemed like moments after the final game of the season ended, news that Harbaugh would be leaving the organization became official – though it was “news” everybody had been expecting for weeks.
Many blamed – and continue to blame – Harbaugh for the situation in San Francisco. But it’s beyond ridiculous to pin all of the blame on him. Yes, Harbaugh can be prickly. Yes, he has an ego. And yes, he probably bears some of the responsibility for the fractured relationship with San Francisco’s front office. But by the same token, it would have to be hard to be Harbaugh and have two guys in York and Baalke – guys who never played the game at any level – micromanaging him and telling him how to do his job. Especially given the fact that he not only played the game at a high level, but had a tremendous amount of success as a head coach.
What it all boils down to though, aside from their egos, is credit. Harbaugh received the lion’s share of it for helping turn the franchise around. York and Baalke desperately wanted their share of the credit, but never got it. That, according to some, helped pave the way for all of the drama surrounding the power struggle that ruined a season for San Francisco, and helped drive a coach who won them a lot of games out of town.
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Not only that, but there are many who believe that the power struggle, the loss of Harbaugh, and the resulting power structure in which York and Baalke positioned themselves at the top of, helped drive away some of San Francisco’s best players.
Honestly, can any of you reading this ever remember seeing as many players suddenly and unexpectedly retire as have in San Francisco this offseason?
Though the retirement of Justin Smith (14 seasons) is certainly understandable, the retirement of Patrick Willis after just eight seasons in the league is somewhat surprising. More surprising though, are the retirements of Chris Borland after a single season in the NFL, and the very recent and very surprising retirement of Anthony Davis after just five years – with both of those players having to re-pay substantial portions of signing bonus money to leave the team.
Not only are the 49ers dealing with the fallout from the rash of retirements, San Francisco also lost a number of players – some of them starters – who opted to leave as free agents. Gone are Michael Crabtree, Mike Iupati, Steve Johnson, Frank Gore, Perrish Cox, and Chris Culliver, all electing to seek greener pastures elsewhere.
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That is a whole lot of talent gone from the 49ers roster. And there are some who believe that talent is gone, at least in part, because of the York/Baalke regime. Some believe that the mass defection relates to how they handled the Harbaugh situation, but more specifically, how they’re asserting themselves and putting their own stamp on the franchise – and how it doesn’t sit quite right with some players.
We may never know the real reason so many players – many of them starters and key pieces – opted to bug out of San Francisco when the opportunity arose. But the mass exodus out of the Bay Area is certainly intriguing, to say the least. It’s almost like watching the wildlife running, en masse, out of a forest that is on fire. And it certainly raises more than a few questions.
It’s hard to not feel sorry for new HC Jim Tomsula. He’s an unfortunate by-product of the Harbaugh/York/Baalke power struggle. Installed after York and Baalke won the fight, he now has some incredibly large shoes to fill. And when he doesn’t live up to the standard that Harbaugh established, he will be the fall guy for York and Baalke.
After all, you don’t expect them to take the hit for it, right? While they want their share of the credit and glory, they certainly refuse to accept the responsibility of the team’s shortcomings. That’s on the coach.
Times have changed in San Francisco. The organization built by the likes of Bill Walsh, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Roger Craig, Dwight Clark, Ronnie Lott, and many others, is going to fall on some very hard times. During the 49ers’ Golden Years, the front office worked in unison with the coaches and the players. Everybody knew their role, didn’t overstep their bounds, and did their jobs – and they did their jobs very, very well. That’s how the 49ers set the gold standard for the NFL.
But that’s not how business is being done in San Francisco today. And the egos of York and Baalke are threatening to destroy the legacy built by the players, coaches, and executives that came before them.
Something is broken in San Francisco. And it’s broken badly. Only time will tell if York and Baalke will learn something from it, will learn from the history of the organization and get it back on the right, and winning path – or whether they’ll continue insisting on doing things their way, believing that they’re absolutely right, and ride the ship all the way down to the bottom of the Bay.