49er4life1979 wrote:Like some of you have already said, lets give Jed and his new coach Jimmy T the benefit of the doubt here. Could the transition from Harbaugh have been handled better? Absolutely. But ultimately it's what takes place on the field that matters....As for the coaching staff, I think it is a solid one overall. Lots of experience. Tom Rathman returns to coach RBs, I really like Sparano as TEs coach - he is a Parcells guy. Eric Mangini I believe will turn out to be a heck of a DC - he is going back to his roots. He was the Pats DBs coach from 2000-04 and their DC in 2005. He's a Belichick disciple which certainly is a good thing - and the word is he will bring a more aggressive scheme to the defense which is very talented....Tim Lewis (DBs coach) if you recall was at one time a finalist for HC coach job I believe with Niners. He's also been a DC, and the Falcons secondary with him at the helm led the NFL in takeaways in 2012. He's also been pretty instrumental in developing Desmond Trufant. I am actually very excited about the offseason and the upcoming 2015 season.
I do not believe that Jed deserves the benefit of the doubt. In my view, I would give him that if I could look back at a long resume of his filled with many successes in managing an NFL team. There is no such resume. His resume when hired consisted of one entry: Son of Owner.
You can point to his hiring of Harbaugh as a great success and that is true. but how difficult or insightful a decision was that? Singletary was universally recognized as an out and out disaster (nice hire there Jed) and had to go. Harbaugh was really about as obvious a candidate as you could ever hope to find, as Jed had to see articles of Harbs success every morning with his coffee and newspaper. I will give him credit for that hire but it took no genius to do it.
Harbs was an excellent coach, returning the Niners to one play away from winning one SB (contrast with Broncos getting flat out embarrassed in their most recent trip), and coming within a play or two of getting into 2 more SB. Yeah. last year was pretty bad and coaching was a good part of it. Yet a capable management team does not ignore the high level of achievement of the previous 3 years and dump the coach for opaque reasons. And it is quite possible that Jed and company had a hand in undermining the team and Harbaugh last year. (Think hard about the implications of that if true, the GM willing to wreck a season in which the team had a great shot for a SB? Really? If true, that is tantamount to treason.)
I fail to see the reason to give Jed the benefit of the doubt. There is no doubt, he is incompetent. The fiasco of the coaching hires should have clinched that for you. Now, I do hope that Tomsula et al work out great and we get that SB trophy. But I am dubious, and suspect that two years from now the fans will be calling for Jed's head on a pike, deservedly so.
