The San Francisco 49ers officially announced their new general manager, John Lynch. You may know Lynch as one of the FOX Broadcast teams, or the Hall of Fame safety. If you haven’t heard of any of his NFL front office work, it’s because he has none. He essentially retired and walked into the broadcast booth, and now he walks to 4949 Centennial Boulevard to head the 49ers’ front office for the next six years. Kyle Shanahan will be the offensive coordinator for the Falcons on Sunday in the biggest game of his life, and after that, the never-before head coach is reportedly going to get a six-year contract of his own. What in the world is Jed York doing?[Jeff]
It’s easy to look at the last half-decade of the San Francisco 49ers and see exactly what Jed is doing. The best thing he ever put together, the Harbaugh 49ers, fell apart thanks to emotions. Reportedly, Jim Harbaugh was a bear to deal with, as was Trent Baalke. They frequently butted heads, and Harbaugh was eventually dismissed in lieu of keeping Baalke. The 49ers then had two consecutive one-and-done coaches in Jim Tomsula and Chip Kelly before York cleaned house and canned Baalke. There’s one thing he took away from the Baalke/Harbaugh interaction: the general manager and the head coach must be on the same page. So, York went out and got a GM and HC who will reportedly see eye-to-eye, and have already agreed to a split of personnel control.
Why the six-year contracts, though? Well, deep down Jed has to know that he destroyed the best thing he may ever have in his potentially long tenure with the 49ers, and every action since then has been a desperate attempt to recover the glory of the Harbaugh years (three NFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl appearance in three consecutive years). From all of this, two things have developed: Jed York’s itchy trigger finger and Jed York as the cause of the problem. The long contracts do two things, and both shield Jed from blame.
[Sean2]
First, the length of the contracts is a tacit admission to the 49ers fan base that this is a long rebuild, and that they do not anticipate being better for a long while. Neither Shanahan nor Lynch, but especially the dark horse Lynch, had any real leverage. Giving them six-year deals (and freezing ticket prices for two more years) is York’s way of letting us know he does not anticipate a winning team for another few seasons. Betting on a huge unknown also lets Jed tell the fans in a few seasons that there are “growing pains,” and that Lynch has a great vision that needs time to be executed.
Second, the contract length and money acts as a deterrent for Jed. It will be more difficult to eat up the four, or even three remaining years on both Lynch and Shanahan’s contracts if this doesn’t go the way he wants it. He’s put a soothing balm on his itchy trigger finger, and he did it in the form of contract length.
York was gifted the San Francisco 49ers, but he is not a stupid man. He knows the reputation the 49ers have around the NFL, and he knows that he needs to get out of his own way to let the football men lead. York has been wonderful for the 49ers as a money-making organization, but he has been dreadful for their on-field product. The long-term deals to Lynch and Shanahan are signals to the fans that Jed York won’t be meddling nearly as much as in the past, half to save himself from blame, and the other half to stop himself from blowing it all up again.
A writer for the SF Chronicle said this hiring process for a GM and HC was kind of like a blind squirrel looking for a couple of walnuts. It was clear long before the season was over that Balke was going to go. They gained nothing by keeping him around. What Jed York should have done was to make his decision on Balke at the season half-way point, and sack him then. Then he should have done a deliberate and thorough search for a new GM and gotten him hired before the end of the season.
The *GENERAL MANAGER* should be the one running the football operation and nobody else. He then should then have made the decision on whether or not to keep Pete Kelly, and if to let him go, then conduct his search for the next head coach. This isn’t a democracy. One guy, the GM, needs to be the one guiding the organization just as the head coach guides the team. Right now, nobody is sure who is running the show.
Jed York needs to read the US Army manuals on leadership. Being a leader isn’t about making brilliant decisions, barking orders and expecting everyone to kiss up. A real leader knows what is needed in the organization, hires the right people and then… are you ready? Let’s them do their jobs.
All the leaks to the press are the end result of people laying blame for mistakes and failures instead of trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. When people are pointing fingers, everyone is getting in their fox hole trying to avoid the bullets.
As he said earlier, you can’t fire the owner, but you can hope the owner will realize that if he keeps doing things the same way he’s always done (and the process used in the hiring of John Lynch and Kyle Shannahan certainly is more of the same), then he shouldn’t be surprised when he gets the same result.
What’s amazing is how many people they interviewed and chewed through, but the *ONLY* qualification Jed York has for being in the job he is, is that he’s Mama’s boy. If you want to point fingers, don’t point them at Jed York. Point the at Mama. She’s the one who first put John York in charge and then Jed with no more thought than they’re family.
It’s a good thing our president doesn’t run the country this way.