Are 49'ers Ready To Implode?

[CGI_Ram]

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_9d4bff7e-df47-51bb-8117-feb607fdd307.html

The Rams face a grim NFC West battle with the Seahawks and 49ers lording over the division. Seattle and San Francisco have the two best teams in the entire NFL.

But if the 49ers organization implodes, the work out at Rams Park would get a bit easier.

Last week the NFL was abuzz with speculation the Browns pondered acquiring disgruntled 49ers coach Jim Harbaughfor a package of draft picks. Niners czar Jed York shot down the story, but then Browns owner Jimmy Haslamadmitting exploring such a potential deal last month.

So what is going on in San Francisco? We will let the experts break it down for you:

• Jason La Canfora, CBSSports.com: “Things are not getting better behind the scenes for the San Francisco 49ers. There was a persistent rumble throughout the combine about the extent of the rift between coach Jim Harbaugh and the team's front office. It doesn't seem like it will go away, and there is increasing buzz that the team might have to decide between Harbaugh or GM Trent Baalke. The men are barely speaking, I'm told, and almost all communication is through email. Harbaugh also has a strained relationship with team president Paraag Marathe, sources said, and he has clashed with many within the organization. It could prove untenable. If anything, the impression I got this week was that the situation there is actually much worse than how it has been portrayed in the media, and helps explain the delay in giving a new deal to the coach, who has two years left on a contract he has outperformed. Harbaugh has done nothing but reach, at least, the NFC Championship Game since coming to San Francisco three years ago, and the longer this goes on, the worse it might get. To almost anyone I posited the question to, the response was pretty much the same -- there is no way they can't extend Harbaugh. But then again, in the NFL, you never know.”
• Chris Burke, SI.com: “Harbaugh’s current contract situation is hovering over the 49ers’ offseason a bit. He’s currently through three seasons of the five-year, $25 million deal he signed prior to 2011, but the two sides reportedly have discussed an extension. Harbaugh said in December that he 'absolutely' wants to remain in San Francisco.”
• Ray Ratto, CSN Bay Area: “Harbaugh's contract status . . . remains murky, with night and morning friction, and there is no telling how much of the gear-grinding between coach and general manager Trent Baalke is behind the money wrangling. In other words, Browns deal or no, the clashing of shields in the 49er front office is now a daily front-and-center item, and if York hasn’t already chosen a side, he’s going to have to, and sooner rather than later. And this, children, is why one should never count one’s dynasties before they have actually been crowned. People have a tendency to turn into people, and more often than not, people end up being the biggest impediment to the greater achievements of other people.”
• Bill Williamson, ESPN.com: “This five-time Super Bowl-winning franchise was had become all but irrelevant before Harbaugh was hired. They are moving into a new stadium this year. They want Harbaugh to be part of it for now and the foreseeable future. No matter what a potential trade would have brought, I think the 49ers would have lost. They don't need more draft picks. They need strong coaching. The only way of ensuring it is getting an extension for Harbaugh done. If the 49ers can't, this story about a trade with Cleveland will have legs and hover over the team. Undoubtedly, it will create future angst and further stories. If we get to December and Harbaugh is still months away from his walk year, there will be a lot of teams looking to make a splash in 2015 and ready to make a big trade for Harbaugh. That will not be good for the franchise. The 49ers have a great thing going and Harbaugh is a big reason why. Getting an extension is the only smart solution to ensure stories like this go away.”
• Marcus Thompson II, San Jose Mercury News: “It was no doubt an entertaining revelation, this Jim Harbaugh-to-Cleveland drama that came to light Friday. Oh, to be a pen on the desk when G.M. Trent Baalke took that call. Bet those wheels were churning when the Browns came dangling draft picks in front of his nose in exchange for his alpha male head coach. Harbaugh wants $10 million without a Super Bowl ring, huh? I'll show him hardball, and ship him and his $8 khakis to NFL purgatory! Though it is great theater -- especially since late February is like intermission for sports junkies -- this is the kind of stuff that kills dynasties. Or in the 49ers case, snuffs 'em out before they are built. What are we doing here, gentlemen? Here is what we know: The 49ers have built something, and there is no reason to think they can't get better. Harbaugh has been exceptionally successful, and you're not going to find a better coach right now. Harbaugh has never led the 49ers to a Super Bowl victory. Both Baalke and Harbaugh are currently getting owned by Seattle. Neither of them really wants to break apart what's been built. This posturing is dangerous. However captivating, the most likely result of you two slap boxing is someone striking too hard and a real fight breaking out. Put your egos aside and hammer out an extension and end this front office reality show.”

All of this noise reminds us why the top NFL coaches get lots of organizational power. In the end, coaches decide who plays. Coaches decide how players are deployed. Coaches fit players into their schemes or adjust their schemes to their players.

So it’s up to the general manager and the rest of the personnel operatives to find the right players for their coach. They are there to serve, not to dictate what happens on the field.

This is why Kevin Demoff hired Jeff Fisher first, then relied on Fisher’s counsel while hiring general manager Les Snead. By all accounts, Fisher gets the room he needs to do his job.

Disagreements are inevitable. There is nothing wrong with some creative tension as long as it doesn’t lead to massive rifts like the one developing in San Francisco.

Rams fans know how devastating that can be. The “Greatest Show on Turf” had a short run in St. Louis after Rams Park infighting turned a World Championship operation into a dysfunctional mess.

Can the powerful 49ers avoid a similar fate?

 

[Yamahopper]

I will revel in them going 5-11 next year.

 

[Ram_of_Old]

We can only hope so. I think their coach is not very happy.

 

[RamFan503]

Can the powerful 49ers avoid a similar fate?

I vote NO.

 

[mr.stlouis]

I don't really see this affecting the product on the field. Niners are contenders regardless of the bickering between the FO and their wacky coach.

 

[LosAngelesRams]

I'm ready for it!

 

[RamFan503]

So Harbaugh wants to be paid more than Pete with no SB wins and after walking into a pretty sweet roster. Got it.

The guy has what? 3 starters out of his 28 picks as HC? That either says his roster was absolutely loaded or he is a shitty evaluator or both.

On second thought - I hope they pay him top dollar and he is there a long time.

 

[ChrisW]

I don't really see this affecting the product on the field. Niners are contenders regardless of the bickering between the FO and their wacky coach.

Tell that to Singletary , who essentially started the groundwork in San Fran, and couldn't get them to compete.

 

[Sum1]

 

[RamFan503]

Clearly a Rams fan.

 

[Prime Time]

Harbaugh saga promises to dominate 49ers' season
Ann Killion

Though the noise has died down, the issue of Jim Harbaugh's future isn't going away.

More than a week after news broke that theCleveland Browns had inquired about obtaining him and revelations about his strained relations with general manager Trent Baalke made national headlines, the situation remains intriguing and problematic for the 49ers.

Harbaugh's situation will be the backdrop of 49ers free agency, which begins on March 11, the May draft and most definitely the inaugural season in Levi's Stadium.

On one hand, nothing tangible has changed. Harbaugh is still the coach. Baalke is still the general manager. The 49ers are still very good. And the tension between Harbaugh and others in the organization is nothing new. As one 49ers source told me, "We seem to thrive on chaos and distraction."

But on the other hand, the friction has gotten worse. And given the events of the past week, it's become public. So there's no pretending that everything is fine.

And from what I've been told, the tension isn't just upstairs in the building. One source with inside knowledge of the team says that Harbaugh's act has worn thin in the locker room, particularly among some key "face of the 49ers" type players. While the team is winning, that's not a problem. But a few losses could expose a widening rift.

The issue isn't how to make the 49ers' brass more cohesive. Plenty of organizations operate amid chaos and hard feelings. As a 49ers source told me, "If Jim and Trent have a beer together, it's not going to make Kap throw the ball 4 inches higher," referring to the final play of the NFC Championship Game.

Ouch.

No, the issue is who wins the power struggle and how it plays out. The pressure is on 49ers CEO Jed York to figure out this tricky negotiation. John Madden recently weighed in on KCBS, saying, "It's a lot easier to get a suit than it is to get a coach." Which is what you'd expect an old football coach to say, and echoes the belief of most 49ers fans.

Will the 49ers have to get a new coach? A new suit (shorthand for Baalke)?

How exactly will this play out?

There are, I believe, three possible scenarios:

-- Do nothing about a contract extension and live tensely with Harbaugh for one more year, with an all-or-nothing proposition of winning the Super Bowl in February. If the 49ers win the Super Bowl, York and parents will have to reward Harbaugh with the new mega-contract he seeks. And then Harbaugh will have the power to force out Baalke and select his own personnel guy. Or Baalke, seeing the writing on the wall, will choose to leave.

If the 49ers don't win it all, it probably doesn't matter how: either coming tantalizingly close again or having the first non-playoff season of Harbaugh's career. Either scenario will make a tense situation that much worse and make the 49ers willing to part ways even with one more year remaining on Harbaugh's contract. Trading him to a desperate team, like Miami or Dallas, would give the 49ers something in return.

-- Come to a contract agreement in the next few months and live tensely with Harbaugh for a few more years. This would depend on Harbaugh's willingness to accept less than top dollar, which the 49ers don't want to pay him until he wins a Super Bowl. This would also ensure that Harbaugh is coach for 2015, a season that the 49ers would very much like to end by playing a Super Bowl in their own stadium.

The stadium issue gives Harbaugh leverage because the 49ers want a seamless transition to Santa Clara without having their fans turn on them. Losing Harbaugh over money would cause an uproar, especially with the new size XXXL prices at Levi's.

But the 49ers' talent gives the organization leverage: Harbaugh desperately wants to win a Super Bowl and his best shot is with this group. Despite his protests to the contrary, Harbaugh knows that teams have windows and that those windows close. The 49ers' current window is probably going to last only another year or two. But this scenario would require Harbaugh to play nice, which might be impossible.

-- The final scenario is that Harbaugh re-ups and that he and the 49ers live happily ever after.

This is the most unlikely outcome. While I don't necessarily buy the Harbaugh expiration date theory - that he never stays anywhere more than four years (he was always going to end up in the NFL, so there was no way he was spending his prime coaching years in college) - I also don't believe he's the kind of personality that a team can live with for the long term.

One 49ers source said that even with a new contract for Harbaugh, the team would probably only buy peace for a few weeks before speculation started up again.

"That's just who Jim is," I was told. "He'd probably like to redo his contract every year, just out of competition."

That's Harbaugh. He has to win games, press conferences, power struggles, contract negotiations. He's insanely competitive and single-minded.

And right now, he's certainly plotting how to beat his own organization.

Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: akillion@sfchronicle.comTwitter: @annkillion

Report: Jim Harbaugh’s “act has worn thin” in the 49ers locker room
Posted by Mike Florio on March 2, 2014

At this rate, 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh’s infamous “who’s got it better than us?” victory cry eventually may become a “who hasn’t got it better than us?” lament.

With most of the last nine days devoted to a dissection of the dysfunction between Harbaugh and 49ers G.M. Trent Baalke, Ann Killion of theSan Francisco Chronicle identifies a new front in the organizational battlefield.

“One source with inside knowledge of the team says that Harbaugh’s act has worn thin in the locker room,” Killion writes, “particularly among some key ‘face of the 49ers’ type players. While the team is winning, that’s not a problem. But a few losses could expose a widening rift.”

No specific players are mentioned, but the obvious candidates are linebackerPatrick Willis, defensive lineman Justin Smith, running back Frank Gore, receiver Michael Crabtree, tight end Vernon Davis, and/or quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Speaking of the team’s hot-and-cold franchise quarterback, another source explained to Killion that there’s no real link between the Harbaugh-Baalke disconnect and the team’s inability to return to the Super Bowl this past season. “‘If Jim and Trent have a beer together, it’s not going to make Kap throw the ball four inches higher,’” the source said, referring to the intercepted pass from Kaepernick to Crabtree at the end of the most recent NFC title game, the second straight year that the failure of quarterback and receiver to deliver in crunch time ended a postseason run.

As a result, the shelf-life between Harbaugh and Baalke possibly mirrors the shelf life between Harbaugh and his players. If, as Killion points out, adversity arrives and stays, it could all implode.

Some think that, if the 49ers give Harbaugh the contract he covets, all will be well. There’s also a chance it could get worse, right away or in time.

“That’s just who Jim is,” a team source told Killion. “He’d probably like to redo his contract every year, just out of competition.”

At it’s core, that’s really the issue. Jim Harbaugh is intensely competitive.

“Jim is the greatest pure competitor, by far, that I ever met in my life,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh told Sports Illustrated in 2010. “At everything.”

Jim Harbaugh competes with everyone, about anything. It has made him wildly successful during his first three seasons as an NFL head coach, with three straight NFC title game appearances. But it could make this coming season his last one in San Francisco.

And then his competitive nature will be welcomed gladly by any of the various teams that would love to go to only one conference title game.

 

[CGI_Ram]