Jay Glazer: Trent Baalke was trying to undermine Chip Kelly

Jay Glazer joined "Speak for Yourself" on FS1 on Monday as the group discussed the firing of ex-San Francisco 49ers head coach Chip Kelly. What Glazer had to say shed a little more light on the relationship that Kelly had with ex-general manager Trent Baalke.

"He's learned from the Philly thing," Glazer said. "I talked to him [Sunday] night. I've talked to him the last few days. And when he got brought in there by Jed York, here's what happened. For weeks and weeks and weeks, he's known that Trent Baalke has been trying to undermine him and get him out and other people said, 'Go in there and defend yourself.' And he's kind of learned from the Philly thing and said, 'I'm not going to do that yet. I'm just going to go and coach. I'll have my chance.' And he really thought that -- like you said, the Colin Kaepernick thing -- that locker room never fell apart and we were talking about this on presidential debates and that locker room didn't fall apart. So you're right. He did a phenomenal job.

"I don't think he saw it coming. He told me last night he didn't see it coming that badly. But here's a guy in Trent Baalke who...he's been controversial because of his role in Jim Harbaugh affair. It went back to [Mike] Singletary before that, Jim Tomsula. And I reported yesterday on FOX NFL Sunday that two years ago, they were hiring Adam Gase for that job instead of Jim Tomsula.

"They were hiring Adam Gase...He was back in Denver, packing his stuff up to go to San Francisco and at the last second, Trent Baalke went to the owner and completely undercut it. I talked to Gase about it and he is still angry and bitter about it. So 49er fans could have had Adam Gase this entire time if there wasn't so much politics that went on inside that organization. So the politics are gone. Trent Baalke is out of there. Obviously, Chip is out of there. Chip was saying to me last night, 'I'll go be an offensive coordinator somewhere.' He wants to be a football guy."


News that Kelly would be interested in an offensive coordinator position somewhere is interesting. It has been assumed that Kelly would return to the college head coaching ranks following his termination.

CBS Sports noted that Kelly has been spoken highly of by NFL coaches such as Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots and Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks. With Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels likely headed toward a head coaching job following the season, possibly even with the 49ers (he has an interview with them on Saturday), you never know what might happen.

Of course, both Kelly and Baalke were fired by the team over the weekend. "Chip has my gratitude for the job he did this year, navigating the team through some adverse circumstances," said 49ers CEO Jed York on Sunday night via a statement issued by the team.