I’m sure you are all as thrilled as I am over the machinations that are occurring behind the scenes of the San Francisco 49ers front office as they wrestle with the idea of giving Jim Harbaugh a contract extension. Gladly for the sake of the team, the players, and the fans, they decided, amicably, to postpone contract extension talks til after this season.
The thing is, Harbaugh will immediately get the lame-duck designation after this season, depending on how things work out. The team could be at a very very important juncture in their desire to reach the promised land if this team falls short of its goal to win Super Bowl 49.
Harbaugh is currently on his original 5 year contract. One that is set to expire after the 2015 season. Due to his wildly successful start as a head coach here, the flag was raised by Jimbo after 2 season to ask for an extension. Things cooled a bit when they lost the Super Bowl, and then lost in the NFCCG last year. It got to the point of a nonsensical yet partially valid trade offer from the Cleveland Browns that was maybe taken semi-seriously by the team.
Harbaugh certainly has ruffled the feathers of those in the front office. In what ways, us on the outside don’t really know, short of his professions to want to keep certain guys that fall out of favor with the front office, or his maniacal sense of importance to the team.
Certainly, Harbaugh has done an outstanding job as head coach, no one is denying that, but what happens going forward? This is really Jimbo’s contract push. Getting so close so fast has really put him in a shitty position. He set the bar to ‘impossibly high’ in two short years. All the front office has to do is point at the trophy case and say, in their best Judge Smails voice ”Well? We’re waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiting!”
Yes, Bill Walsh turned around a much shittier team in three years. Yes, Walsh is an impossibly high standard to live up to, but Jim put himself in this position, and seems to be driving wedges between he and the front office by hammering this contract thing. He’s backed off, but if he doesn’t win the Super Bowl this year, and say the offense looks a bit ragged, what should the team do?
- Would you give Jim Harbaugh $10 mill a year for not winning it all?
- Would you lame-duck his ass and say win or take your khakis elsewhere?
- Would you say ~$8 mill, take it or leave it?
If we don’t win it all, I’m going with #3.
Forty Niners Forever 
To say Harbaugh got the stadium built is wrong. But he helped pay it off faster.
If you are looking for any one person who got the stadium built it’s Gideon Yu. He had the credentials and the cajones to pull off the $850 Million construction loan, the largest if NFL stadium history.
From Fox Sports article on HC in the NFL who are on the hot seat
San Francisco has been the best team to not win a Super Bowl the past three seasons, losing to the eventual Lombardi Champ each time. That’s a lot of winning, so Harbaugh wants to get paid, and it’s created a rift with management. If he doesn’t climb the mountain in 2014, he may be coaching else where in 2015
Its certainly possible Kevin.
To answer the question you pose in the heading Chuck, my best guess is if they again fall short they offer $7 million. If they do win it they offer $8.5 Million. Both of those offers are top dollar contracts today depending on if you are a SB winning coach or not, and yes it makes a difference.
Seeing as they haven’t disclosed how much Carroll got, it’s hard to say what ‘top dollar’ is, but I think Harbaugh pushes this regardless.
My concern is was and will be, are they going to do what they’ve preached in the preseason, and that’s to not be so goddamned predictable?
Shit, all he has to do is win the whole enchilada and the rest falls into place.
From the info available on the net there are only 2 NFL coaches getting $7 million + who haven’t won a SB, Jeff Fisher and Andy Reid, so if my guess is right, that is top dollar. Carroll is reported as $7 mill + with 4 years left on his current contract. I looked at several sources such as this: http://www.otherleague.com/contracts/nfl-head-coach-contracts-salaries/
Nothing is definitive so we go with what we know. It seems reasonable to assume $8.5 million will be top dollar. Looking at numbers like $12 million, $15 million seems a wee bit overpriced IMO.
Jim has done better than his $5 million according to fair market, I’m guessing Jim values himself higher than the team does so far in his coaching career or an extension would be done. Where the wheels fall off for me is Jim began complaining after year 2 of a 5 year contract. That is disingenuous to me, no player on the team will even try that crap so for the HC to do it is not cool. After year 3 I figure he has a point, up to a point. As you say, as of right now Jim will be a lame duck HC going into year 5, something will change one way or another.
I think he is a very good coach who is fine tuning his philosophy as an NFL coach. Baalke has 21 guys from 2013 and 2014 on roster according to Skeebers, that is some fine reloading of relatively cheap players so IMO both from a personnel perspective and a coaching perspective Jim has all the tools he needs to make another run at it.
It doesn’t all rest on him of course but he has the largest effect on what happens when game day rolls around and he is getting paid to carry the can if it falls short again. Like you i am encouraged by the talk of opening it up a bit and also like you I will believe it when i see it.
Kevin, sent ya an email.
got and I responded!! gona be epic!!
I guess you don’t remember the stadium deal being pretty much dead in the water. Harbaugh came on board and things got rolling again. We all have our opinions. Harbaugh’s relationship with Mark Davis will be telling. If Harbaugh uses the Raiders as leverage, which Harbaugh should, and the 49ers don’t want Harbaugh pushing a new stadium through in the Bay Area for the Raiders, Harbaugh can leverage Jed York over 10 million per year. Harbaugh will have Jed over a barrel. Especially if Mark Davis want to stick it up the 49ers’ ass. If I was Harbaugh, I’d crush Jed York. The Raiders give Harbaugh a ton of leverage. Jed York will look like an idiot if he lets Harbaugh get out of town. I can’t wait for the showdown!
No. The stadium vote was passed. That was the biggest hurdle. They did all the EIRs and shit in 2009 and earlier. Shit was going according to schedule once the vote passed. It wasn’t dead.
Sorry if the facts refute your opinions, as these aren’t debatable points.
Yes, the winning helped. Leave it at that, skippy.
Actually the winning hadn’t even started when the funding was in the bank. Not only was there no winning, there wasn’t even a training camp before the project was fully funded.
Now I know Harbaugh isn’t exactly Nick Saban with all the cache such a winning college coach has which makes Banksters feel confident that the college coach will obviously work out….Oh wait…never mind. I’m sure those $200 million dollar checks were written based on this guy Jim Harbaugh, due to his lengthy trophy winning college career which as the Saban experiment shows means exactly nothing in the NFL.
You can have your opinion Spitty no problem, just stop being so amazed when others laugh at it.
No… not even close. The stadium vote wasn’t the biggest hurdle. Of course Santa Clara wanted the 49ers. That’s a no brainer. And even EPA reports weren’t the biggest hurdle. The biggest hurdle was the private funding, and that, like I said a few times now, was dead in the water pre – Harbaugh.
Yawn, your ignorance is showing again (EIP not EPA). Give it up, your just being argumentative now. Nobody wins them all Spitty, not even the venerable you and in this instance you just don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Stick with saying how much Harbaugh will get paid for his next contract, that’s far more realistic, your high water mark so far is $15 million a year.
Dammit you got me at it now EIR
The Raiders will be in LA by 2016. On that you can book.
Not sure LA wants then after the last time Chuck. I know I don’t but they do still have a strong following down here even if a lot of it is the gang/thug element. I would rather have the bills or rams personally.
The problem with LA, 12th, is and always has been a stadium. They either build one out of the valley in the sticks, like out towards Riverside or San Berdoo, which defeats the whole purpose, tear down the Colisseum and rebuild it, and who in their right mind would invest that much money in that part of town?, or suck it up and live with tens of thousands of empty seats and no local TV – ever.
They’ve been trying to puzzle out that conundrum for a very, very long time. That’s not to say that the Raiders aren’t stupid enough to try.
Hey RT. They have 2 stadium deals more or less ready to go. One in downtown near Staples Center, that one even has a naming rights deal in place “Farmers Field” and another that is actually shovel ready near Carson IIRC. The sticking point so far is how much of the stadium pie the NFL is demanding and having a team ready to move there.
I would put my money on the Charges returning to LA where they began in 1960. They have no new stadium deal and no substantive talks about getting one. I don’t think the Spanos family want to move them but they badly need a better stadium and the Chargers fans there don’t show up enough so they black out or buy gameday tix a lot even during good seasons.
Something has to change.
Thank for the info, 12th, I didn’t know all that. That’s too bad about the Chargers. I suppose since I saw the ’81 All-Star Game at Jack Murphy (Rod Carew had two triples which rolled to the base of the center field wall, just below where my brother and I were), and they’re still playing NFL football there, that it’s time has come.
Its archaic RT. I go down there most years to watch the Niners/Chargers pre-season game that the Niners invariably lose. It’s about on par with the old stick.
The Raiders should go to San Antone. SA wants ’em. SA can convince the sheep to build them a state of the art stadium, fill it and keep it filled. The Raiders already have a friendship/rivalry going with the Cowpatties.
But, they’re the Raiders. They’ll either take a big bribe from Oakland/Alameda County to stay again, or take a big bribe to go back to the Colisseum where they’ll they’ll stay in the black hole of local TV for ever and ever.
Or finally fill in that gravel pit in Irwindale.
I can see Harbs going to a lot of teams; the Raiders ain’t one of ’em. Maybe in San Antone, but personally you couldn’t pay me enough to move to Texass.
I like San Antonio, love the river walk area. I have been in the old Alamo Dome for a 3 day martial arts tournament, that place sure as shit won’t cut it for the NFL these days buy I don’t think there would be too much difficulty raising the funding to build a new stadium. I just think the Raiders are using it as a bargaining chip for leverage. How many teams can Texas support? I guess they could do one more.
A Raider team in SA would draw fans for hundreds of miles in all directions – at least until they started losing. At 85 mph, 150 miles isn’t that far to drive for a game and people in this part of the world would just consider it a ROAD TRIP!
This is the problem with putting a an NFL team in So Cal, unless you have a winning team NO ONE shows up. look at the Rams. The whole reason they moved was no one came to the games. Look you have the Dodgers who have a long history of being consistently good, the Lakers same thing. LA people have too many options to choose from to. Why spend $$$$ to watch a losing team year in and year out.
Yeah you make a good point. The Clippers struggled for years with attendance because they sucked. LA has a ton of choices for entertainment but with the newer franchise business models I think that gameday attendance will have a smaller proportion of relevance to the finance side of things. Executive boxes, astronomical PSL licences for season tix holders in effect making season tix a business inside of itself etc have changed the financing dynamic considerably since the rams and raiders days of old.
I don’t think it would be too hard to make a financial case to bring a team in. How good that team is over the long haul could definitely have an effect though.
Georgia moved the team because she couldn’t get a stadium. Like all these other carpetbagging owners. St Louis threw themselves all over Georgia and the Rams.
The public funding of stadiums is B.S. I think that ship has largely sailed since the economy tanked. The Niners have shown private investment along with a sizeable NFL loan and their own funds can make it work. The Niners are a bit of a special case in as much as they had one of the most loyal season tix base with a waiting list for dead mans shoes. Not as much a GB but plenty solid. But it proves the business case.
Georgia was an asshole. I miss going down there to watch the Niners kick butt. Weird how Niners often won there and the Rams at the Stick, at least every time I went.
Truth is, the fricking RAMS could come back. Stop me if you’ve heard this. They want a new stadium and the city isn’t very aamenable to that fact.
Demo Hollywood Park and use the land the owner just bought . . .
The NFL is DYING to get a team back to LA.
Big rumors floated about doing just that but Stan says no.
Dying? Who’s dying? How about an expansion team or two in LA. One team can be called FUCK and the other YOU!
The very best place for the Oakland Raiders is in Oakland. Period. Problem is the Raiders are a Mickey Mouse organization with a Jr. for an owner, no franchise qb and no stadium. DOES THAT REMIND YOU OF ANYONE? This was the 49ers three years ago.
The only time the Raiders have been relevant in the last twenty years is when they had a coach. Coaching is everything in the NFL. And Al Davis was stupid enough to alienate himself from Gruden and then trade him. What have the Raiders done since? That’s the problem with these dumb owners like Al Davis with Gruden or Jones with Jimmy…. maybe now Jed with Harbaugh – These owners don’t want to recognize the importance or value of good coaching. They get their egos involved and think it’s their moves, not the coach’s that are important. There’s no doubt in my mind there’s some of that right now with Jed York. And he, like Al and Jerry, will be victim to the old saying, “The pride before the fall.”
If Mark Davis wants a new stadium in Oakland all he has to do is pay Jim Harbaugh 15 million per year to coach his team. The first move Harbaugh would make as the HC of the Raiders would be to find a franchise qb (and he’ll find a good one). Then he’d assemble a great coaching staff. McKenzie can draft. Then it’s about winning. And Harbaugh’s proven he can put all of these places together quickly. Once these pieces are in place, a new stadium in Oakland or nearby is a lot easier to accomplish. With Harbaugh that’s easier than you think…. and Harbaugh’s already proved this.
The above paragraph isn’t far off, and it’s a nightmare scenario for Jed York. I love it.
all of these “pieces together” not places….
You probably don’t agree Spit but Harbaugh walked into a far better starting position than he would if he did go to the Raiders. Not even close.
I totally agree with that, but I also have faith in two things: Reggie McKenzie, and John Madden’s statement that it’s easier to find a coach than a suit. McKenzie’s already doing a good job of the building the team. I think Harbaugh could put the Raiders in the playoffs with the team they have now. Championship game year one like he did with the Niners? No way. Not enough talent.
I agree about McKenzie, he did what had to be done and has started putting some better pieces in place. I’m a bit surprised Al Jr has given him the time to do it and won’t be surprised if he cans him if the season sucks again but he deserves more time IMO.
Playoffs this season? Highly doubtful given the division right now. Another solid draft and maybe.
Harbaugh won’t be going there however. My bet is he stays with the Niners, if not then he would look for a team that is close to ready as the last thing his career needs is a semi-shitty team to try to continue his success with. He will get paid from a shitty team or a competitive one so if I am him I go to the better team.
I think you meant Madden said harder to find a coach than a suit. In his day the suit was a small part of an organization. That has not been the case for many years and the excesses of the first half of the Nineties clearly demonstrate that with the advent of the salary cap. The suits are now highly paid, powerful pieces of an organization and having a bad one (Dallas) will hamstring the organization every bit as much as having a bad coach.
Madden is a product of his time but the NFL is far removed from his era.
The Niners has one of the very best front offices in the game with Baalke and Marathe. Harbaugh is fortunate to have them building his roster and the organization is fortunate to have Harbaugh coach it.
You’re full of shit. I’ve already debated this topic with NJ… and won. I listed all the potential good GMs and he listed all the good, potential HC. My list dominated his. Madden said it recently… and he’s correct.
Chuck I think this post deserves consideration for POTD or week or month:
Here’s your track record BTW: I think this is what happened and so in conclusion it did, the end. P.S. your all idiots.
Classic.
Paying off a loan at $30M/yr for forty years is hardly based on the faith of a new rookie head coach for the team on either side of the equation.
If so many folks are willing to pay $50+ just to park and $15 for a beer I’m looking to put together a deal for my new Gladiator Stadium.
Nicely done.
I don’t know about paying off, but when investing you take a hard look at all the variables. And the head coach is a huge issue.
Investing is all about returns. You can’t get a return until the payments each year are made (costs) leaving whatever profit is left (ROI) so a rookie coach is simply a non factor in the equation of whether or not to make the deal and at best is only a small portion of the loan length of time, again a non-factor. It just has no bearing on the deal, none.On this one you are just wrong.
Point is what mattered was not putting the taxpayers of SC on the hook for the stadium costs, building, or operating. The Niners found a way to cover over-runs and operating costs themselves or with new and increased fees. Corporate sponsors, season ticket holders and fan loyalty has not been a problem for this team. Who the current coach is going to be never came up! Lots of players and coaches come and go in forty years.
I read somewhere that the sales of seat licenses, luxury boxes and such have been coming in much faster than anticipated allowing the Niners to pay down the debt considerably over what they figured to be in for at this point in time. I think the team riding high has been a big reason for that and Harbaugh gets some of the credit for that.
Right. The process was underway when Harbaugh came aboard. He certainly helped by making them relevant.
People love to vilify Barry Bonds, but without him, there’s no AT&T Park.
You guys are idiots. The process was definitely underway. Nobody is denying that. The process was dead in the water is what I said when this debate started and if you’d like I can dig up some evidence to this point.
Spot on, nicely done again.
That’s to NF, not you Spitty.
What you said Spitty is this deal gone done because they hired Harbaugh, ummm no. This deal got done because all the hurdles were cleared and Gideon Yu had the ability to pull off the huge loan. It just happened at about the time the hired Harbaugh and you are unsophisticated enough to think Harbaugh was why they got the funding.
Thank you, I know. I was spot on. Appreciated.
Levi stadium having traffic control problems?
Let’s hope the get if figured out.
Good, bad, or indifferent, I’m taking my son to the game. Got a neighbor with season tix who didn’t want ’em (they went to some tour thing last night), and figured, why not?
Went to the last (flag) football game at the stick. Might as well see the 1st one at the Zip.
Can’t wait to see how this shit goes down.
Good for you Chuck, I can’t wait to see the new digs. I think I read Kevin went already? He didn’t say much about it though. Take some pix for the blog.
Give it a loud BLEEP!
Looks like Johnny football will get a shot at starting after all:
When you look at the list of QBs who hit the ground running vs. the ones who hit the ground running for their lives, the latter one is a much longer list.
They’d be well-served easing Johnny Football into the league.
Speaking of arms, check out the ref on this play.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/check-out-the-gun-on-this-referee-throwing-flag-in-jaguars-bears–video-161300696.html
12th. no he’ll be there Sunday as well.
Gonna meet up and grab a $40.00 beer. . . .
Ah cool, good to hook up with blog members! Enjoy the single beer you guys will split between you!
Here’s the beginning of what I’m talking about…. you need to go back to 2010, before Harbaugh was even here. I’ll find more for you jackasses.
http://www.montereyherald.com/regionalsports/ci_15265171
15 watts may have been too high.
This article says the various people think it would be hard to get financing in place, so?
2 words GIDEON YU, know who he is even? CFO of Facebook, CFO of Youtube, Treasurer and Senior Vice President of Yahoo those were just some of his former positions. When he left Facebook he left with $500 million in stock alone. He is one of Silicon Valleys major hitters. They made him Team President initially and then a co-owner of the team after he delivered the financing package. A package of this size and scope had never been done before, hence all the various people saying how hard it would be.
At this point I am giving up on you, rave on McDuff. Its become boring.
What’s becoming boring? That Levi Stadium is the house Harbaugh built? And that he’ll build a stadium for the Raiders in Oakland as well…. if they pay him. I hope for your sake it’s not boring because that’s the game on this blog for the next two years…. when things are slow at least.