Not much going on, and I’m not feeling drafty yet, so let’s delve into our newly minted organization. As we all know, there’s a new sheriff on town. Well, he ain’t new, but he just pulled off the mean feat of turning the team into his rather than his mercurial former employee, Jim Harbaugh.
On an offseason last year that was fraught with distractions. Trent Baalke (with the help of Young Jed Tweetsalot) managed to get the bar set impossibly high for St Jim to reach. Throw in injuries, suspensions, shitty play calling and a suddenly indecisive QB and you get what we just had. A coaching redo.
Trent pulled most of these strings to get the ball rolling, but certainly St Jim wanted out once it became clear that the Michigan job was his for the taking. Interesting thing is, though, for all the talk of continuity, Baalke sent all the coaches on their merry way. Everyone but Tomsula, Mangina, the Geepater and s couple low-level guys.
Tomsula walks into a staff that has been built by Baalke. Sure, s couple have tied to him, and maybe that’s significant in some way, but this staff had been hand-picked by the GM. Not the head coach. You know, the usual process. With he draft coming up, How many of you think Tomsula gets box of crayons and a coloring book while Trent does the heavy lifting? I’m raising my hand.
San Francisco 49ers Forever 
The point being, Baalke has gone from being the guy behind the scenes to the driving force of the team. At this point he’s got little Jed on his side, but should this season go south, you have to wonder what kind of restraint Jed shows.
This is a weird situation because of how Baalke built the team. Most of Scotty’s draft picks are gone, and most of the coaches are gone now as well. Jed, at least to the casual fans, looks like a petulant kid who didn’t like his head coach and gored him for no particular reason. I felt like Harbaugh had done all he was capable of with this team. The offense was stagnating, and the players weren’t happy with the turmoil. Self posed or not.
Chuck I’ve trumpeted the return of Tom Gamble several times recently.
Good timing, good re-hire by Jed/Trent as well.
The last remnants of Scot McCloughan’s regime are scattered about the roster now.
Likely to see the departure of Iupati, Crabtree and maybe a deal involving Vernon and/or Brooks.
I see Tomsula having involvement with the DLine selections to continue.
This Draft is deepest with the DLine options, an area I expect us to shop heavily.
Might snag a CB/S too if they feel inclined to lean in that direction.
Having mixed feelings right now regarding a WR Pick at 15.
The guy I value the most is DeVante Parker from Louisville.
If he slips to 15, I’d be happy to have him.
Otherwise, DT Malcom Brown would suit me just fine, though 15 could be a little high, he’d be a welcome addition to replace RayMc.
Wouldn’t rule out a stud DE there either.
Once again, it’s all about slotting. Trent seems to have a pretty good handle on where he expects to find his guys.
WRs have always bugged me in the top half of the Draft. Very few can step up right out of College and contribute.
Too much of a learning curve involved there.
It would be pretty nice to grab DT Malcolm Brown in RD1 and WR Devin Smith in RD2 too.
Yeah I forgot to mention the Gamble hire. I’m happy about that as well. With Trent’s added responsibilities, I guess he needs help. The QB coach Logan too. I just don’t get the Geepster at all. Continuity be damned, the guy just doesn’t thrill me at all. I mean Mancini was a total back up plan for Fangios departure, but I feel like they didn’t have a plan for losing Roman.
As I read you, Chuck you’re saying the important decisions will not be made on the field but behind the scenes in the suites. The HC in pro ball is being phased out of importance. Too much specialization now. Sure on game day the HC will be marching on the sidelines putting on a show but in reality all the real important decisions will be made by Baalke and his staff long before the season begins.
In contrast Harbaugh can go back to college where the HC is much more important.
Well, that’s what this team is doing, Nipper. Whether it is going to work or not is the big question.
As Ive been saying for months, all they need to do is run a balanced offense that utilizes a cogent passing game. They need to rework the line some to get this done.
Tomsula will be in control. I’m sure of that. The fact that by nature he is more of a team player and will lean on Baalke for support more than Harbaugh is a big plus for this fan. Baalke will have more say under this new set up but Tomsula has been around the block once or twice. He knows what he is doing.
I’m not upset with the Chryst hire, I’m just not excited about it. Problem is I don’t know enough to comment on him. His past accomplishments are not looking very dynamic but there isn’t enough data to come to a comprehensive enough conclusion.
The fact he called the red zone plays in a formula where 4 coaches called the plays is meaningless. That formula is so flawed I feel bad for Roman, my old whipping boy. Roman might have still been one of the problems, don’t know for sure, but obviously Harbaugh was the one who was most flawed by implementing such a poor system of calling plays.
Chryst was the OC in SD with Harbaugh in his last year and then had Leaf as a rookie. He had bad numbers in a volatile situation. His grade is incomplete. I’m a little worried but he does have experience and he’ll have better personnel to work with this time.
One thing I do know is we are tied for first place right now! And since I have no input on the decision making process and am a fan for life, I will just stay positive until I see the need to bitch.
“interferring Jed” “Jed Tweetsalot”. Lots of chatter about Jed, akin to Jerruh some say. Crock of shit. Jed sent one, as in singular, tweet about the quality of play in one game which by the way was appalling. Try being a Colts, Skins, Cowboys fan if you want to see interfering and oddly enough 2 of those teams did better than the Niners last year.
Jed is hardly interfering, at least publicly.
He paid for a new stadium, had the highest and largest coaches payroll, was just barely under the cap. Seemed to me he was giving just about everything a coach could want or dream about. What an asshole.
Yep!
YUP!
Sorry to disagree but, no. And this is more on Baalke. Jed is just riding along at this point. What most coaches want is control of their environment. They want to hire their staff. They don’t want the GM doing that before the fact. Which is why Tomsula is the HC and not some known entity outside the building.
Was Tomsula part of the hiring of the coaching staff? Did he provide feedback? We’ll never know. They did get Logan, someone he knew in his NFLE days, so there’s that, but this smacks of just going internal, or the path of least resistance.
I’m Fine with Mangini, Logan, the defensive coaches, and Gamble. Chryst IS my biggest concern.
All thus being said, I’m not down on the team. They live and die by what happens on the field. They certainly have the talent to make a deep run in the playoffs.
I’m going with 12th on this one.
Reading Skeebers and Bullit when they talk of Jed reminds me of a little boy in a tantrum yelling out “I hate my dad”.
I haven’t been to Skeebs blog for a while Berger. When I last read it there was a ton of lashing out going on. Jed sucks, Baalke is an asshole, the team will suck for a decade etc, etc. Emotional wailing and thrashing, gnashing of teeth. Just got old reading the same thing over and over.
People in general are afraid of change, especially when they are unwilling to really examine why the change is occurring. It is far easier and more comfortable to play the blame game and defend the hero of the hour even if that premise is flawed.
If we stand back from the situation it is clear change was inevitable. At best it would have been one more season and Saint Jim has a large dose of responsibility for that.
He took a huge swing for the fences and very nearly made it, but he didn’t, and the team played successively worse seasons following the SB appearance. That in conjunction with his widely accepted difficult personality and a clearly divided locker room (they physically used 2 locker rooms, anyone need more evidence than that?) and it was bound to end.
Like all the rest of us, I have no idea if what the franchise is doing will work or not, but what was in place was no longer working and that is just a fact.
Disagree is fine Chuck but support the “interfering Jed” proposition. I have seen close to zero interference.
As for who hired the various coaches, have you read Baalke hired anyone without Tomsula’s input or blessing or are you just supposing that is what happened?
As you say, none of us will likely know, but it is curious you decided it must be Baalke doing the hiring and not Tomsula or as is more likely both of them doing it together. I can’t imagine Tomsula having no say in who his coaches are.
Did Baalke hire anyone before Tomsula was named HC? I just don’t see any evidence as yet.
Baalke said something at the initial press conference that I thought was telling. He said there are plenty of qualified coaches who want to come to the Niners or words to that effect. He kind of blurted that out, in defense of the idea that no good coaches would want to work for the Niners.
I am certain the FO had a plan for OC, it just didn’t pan out for who knows what reasons so, much like the Rams, the Niners ended up promoting from within as they ran out of time waiting for a specific candidate who eventually chose to re-sign with his existing team.
Make no mistake, Baalke has put himself front and center of the Franchise, but to presume Tomsula has no input on his staff is unfounded by any evidence and highly unlikely no matter how nice he is.
Funny how these assumptions propagate in the interwebs with no supporting evidence.
Well, Tomsula has little experience putting together a staff, and Baalke himself said it would be a group effort. Meaning most of the weight would be carried by Baalke. Given the tone of the first interview it sure looked like Baalke was doing most of the heavy lifting when it comes to any kind of decision.
These guys may not have been hired before Tomsula, but it sure seemed like the dominoes were in place. Same goes for OC. The QB coach was already in place, the RB coach, and the line coach as well. This begs the situation where they dictate the coaching staff to the OC, not the guy that should. IMO.
FWIW, Boldin and Kappy are excited by Chryst as OC.
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/02/10/anquan-boldin-colin-kaepernick-excited-about-geep-chryst-as-offensive-coordinator/
“Well, Tomsula has little experience putting together a staff, and Baalke himself said it would be a group effort. Meaning most of the weight would be carried by Baalke.”
I don’t see that meaning from what was said. It is collaborative from what was said.
I don’t mean to jump on you particularly Chuck. It could be that what you are assuming is right. It could also be that what you are assuming is way off. What I am getting at is that something often repeated becomes defacto even though there is no evidence to support it.
You are far from the screaming masses I read elsewhere readying the noose for Baalke/Jed. All the same, these assumptions are just that.
I figure Jed has done a stand up job as an owner providing all the tools for the coaches to work with and Baalke has mostly provided strong talent for them too, with 2012 I think being a notable flop. All this berating and belittling of Jed is unwarranted IMO. As for Baalke, he has put himself in the prime position and we shall see if he is up to the task.
As far as this group of coaches goes I will reserve judgement until I see what they bring to the table, but will keep my powder dry all the same.
Another thing I got from that conference is that Baalke filed the void created by Tomsula’s clumsy media performance. Tomsula is no polished performer in front of the cameras. I got the feeling he was afraid to say the wrong thing which is a shame. When he took over from Singleneuron he was great in front of the camera’s, no pressure was on him and he was a breath of fresh air. I hope he loosens up again. Likable guy I thought.
Your comment about the divided locker room hit home. The fact we had two locker rooms is not only divided mentally, it is physically divided. How can a leader let that happen? Harbaugh is a great competitor and good football mind but not such a good manager.
That was the nail in the coffin for me Berger. How the heck can they be a team yet use 2 locker rooms and how does Harbaugh allow it to continue?
Yeah, as far as I’m concerned they should be better than last year, certainly.
A lot of their issues came from the tornado of bullshit (TM) that Harbaugh embroiled himself in..
Just remember, I stole that TM from NoFear months ago! LOL!
Again though through all if this , the Geepster is the question mark. I have faith inTomaula to keep the defense rolling. I have serious misgivings around the offense.
You worry that the O will be less effective than 2014?…..Really?
Yeah, the bar has been set fairly low. Maybe next year we can get a little rhythm going by having only one coach call plays!
Does Tomsula even get a chair in the “war room”?…
That;s the point, 12th. I have no idea. Geep is a total mystery, He has very little track record and he has never been in situation like this,
I swear to God, Bullit is the stupidest mother fucking idiot on Earth. Time to go back to ignoring the fucking children over in skeeberland. It baffles the fuck out of me that they think Harbaugh did nothing wrong in 4 years here, Yeah, he won. But he lied to his players when it was convenient, lied to his bosses when he felt like it, and, at least from what I’ve heard, pissed off everyone in the building.
He3 dorve himself out of here as much as the rst of them did0
I believe he drove himself out of here too but I’ve never heard any stories of him lying. It seems some of his players he coached at Stanford don’t care for him. That’s probably mostly sour grapes because Harby didn’t draft them.
Some considered quitting the program under Harbaugh.
He told Alex Smith he’d get his job back. That was a big lie. The whole deal around scouting Manning was bs as well.
That being said I Don’t give a shit any more. He couldn’t get it done with a very talented team.
I don’t quite see it that way but it is interesting that you do. I would imagine there are others that see it your way.
Should we read anything into Steve Young saying the 49ers have a Super Bowl roster when we were only 8-8 this last year? Hmmm! It doesn’t sound like much of an endorsement for Harbaugh.
Young didn’t exactly endorse the new coaches either. But he also didn’t say anything negative. It sounded to me that he had not yet formed an opinion.
The team underperformed, hard to argue otherwise. The ultimate responsibility lay with Harbaugh. This is the NFL, whatever you did last year means jack shit, Harbaugh paid the price.
Just saw this article re the Tomsula hire. A little old but …
http://www.mercurynews.com/49ers/ci_27320287/tomsula-will-reportedly-be-49ers-choice
I’m a little surprised the offensive players onboard with the hire.
Then again this was before the jeepster hire.
Down here in the South Bay I’m seeing a lot of JEEPS.
12th Man, I understand that hearing the truth over on Skeebers blog might be a little alarming to you. The problem is the hiring Tomsula along with the other hiring’s Jed quickly did to fill a void shouldn’t be another Erickson, Nolan and Singletary lets wait and see what happens moment for you.
Tomsula will fail as a Head Coach because he has no credentials and no business being given that position. Kaepernick will never be Russell Wilson or an Aaron Rodgers Quarterback and will go down in history as a wannabe, nobody. Remember if Jed really wanted to be another Eddie or really listened to his advice on the phone neither of these men would be our football team right now and that’s all you need to know.
So just sit back and enjoy another decade of failure of John, Denise and Jed fooling you into believing that they care about winning. Oh and thank God every night that the NFL gave you the Fantasy League to keep your mind occupied while this tragedy is taking place.
Thx for the heads up…thought you gave up your fan card…go worship at the alter of St. Harbaugh like you said you would.
Yadda yadda yadda..
I blame you for not taking them out when you had the chance.
New thread………