The debate continues about whether firing Harbaugh was the right move, but he seems to understand that he was wrong in hiring Tomsula. He acknowledges that he made bad hires post-Harbaugh, and that he was misled by wanting the opposite of what Harbaugh represented. Occasional missteps happen ("you don't fire owners" for example) but he has changed his tone from one of elitist buck passing to one of personal accountability and responsibility for the decline. Now it seems that the team, while lacking enough talent to put together a complete 60 minute game, keeps on grinding, and though the losses keep mounting the attitude in the locker room seems elevated compared to under the pregious regime.Įven Jed York, the arch-nemesis of many on here seems to have made strides.
We all remember the Kelly Era, when it just seemed that the players were going through the motions instead of fighting for wins. The NFL record five straight losses by three or fewer points, and being in position to win - or tie - based on the outcome of the final possession shows that the team still believes in themselves, and that a single play per game going one way instead of the other could easily have this team at 2-4, 3-3, or even 4-2 and in the thick of our divisional race, instead of virtually eliminated by the start of week seven. After losing six-straight, it would be easy to get disenchanted, to give up, to stop fighting, but that's not the case. The players echo the coaches with their comments about the losses. What sticks out for me is the attitude of the team seems different. John Lynch was a surprise hire, being a media guy and not a personnel guy, and while he has made some head-scratching decisions, he's also made some shrewd moves (the draft day trade from number two to number three to get the picks required to move back up to grab Reuben Foster jumps put, in particular) and done a good job of giving Shanahan some tools to start installing his offense, while doing a decent job of helping Robert Saleh build his defense. We seem to have finally struck gold - or, at least, in theory - with the hiring of Kyle Shanahan. We all know the story that followed, with the whisper campaign, the abortive attempt at hiring a "teacher-coach," hiring an offensive guru and giving him terrible position coaches and coordinators. The closest thing that I can recall was the 2004-2010 "rebuild," which never really felt like a rebuild, largely because from about 2008-2010 the team always seemed talented but undercoached - a belief that was largely confirmed when Harbaugh took over in 2011 and immediately got us 13 wins and a playoff victory. I don't remember the 1981 Super Bowl victory. I don't remember the Walsh rebuilding in 19. I was so young, in fact, that I was still nursing and wearing diapers, in fact, so I have no recollection of really anything football-related until a few years later. I was extremely young when Bill Walsh came on and led the 49ers to an 0-7 start. We're in the company of one-win teams like the Chargers and Giants. We're in the company of the Factory of Sadness team, the Cleveland Browns. No matter how you say it, it means through six games we are objectively, subjectively, and in all ways among the worst teams in the NFL for the 3rd straight season.