Perception of past 49er head coaching hires

Wonder what's everyone's take on past head coaching hires. Clearly Tomsula is met with bad perception. Personally I was high on erickson or Mariucci. erickson a clear failure even though he kept most of Mariucci's old staff in 2003.
Certainly wrong about Mariucci, he was solid. Just got too conservative late in games in 2001-2002 that cost us games. Got a couple playoff wins

Mike Nolan-was not too impressed but we were rock bottom in 2005. A lot of people not interested in this job in 2005. Nolan played favorites, and teams were rarely prepared since we would always play from behind.

Singletary- I actually thought he could be decent. Had bad staff around him. Never any adjustments made. He had a lot of power in decision making also. Might explain why Baalke is now a power beast in front office

Thoughts all?

The Tomsula hire feels like the Singletary hire all over again. I can't even explain it but it does. Hopefully Tomsula is smart enough to realize he needs a lot of help and surrounds himself with good, quality coaches.

I also hope Baalke keeps his nose out of it!

Originally posted by TheChozen:

The Tomsula hire feels like the Singletary hire all over again. I can't even explain it but it does. Hopefully Tomsula is smart enough to realize he needs a lot of help and surrounds himself with good, quality coaches.

I also hope Baalke keeps his nose out of it!

Agree. Seems like Baalke is the de facto coach. That dude better not draft anymore A.J. Jenkins type players

Going from Harbaugh to Tomsula (purely from a front office point of view) feels like when Dallas went from Parcells to Wade Phillips.

Originally posted by TheChozen:
The Tomsula hire feels like the Singletary hire all over again. I can't even explain it but it does. Hopefully Tomsula is smart enough to realize he needs a lot of help and surrounds himself with good, quality coaches.

I also hope Baalke keeps his nose out of it!

It does feel like Singletary all over again. I like Tomsula as a DL Coach, or maybe DC, but he wasn't a DC in the NFL, I don't buy NFLE as this big thing, it was minor league football, with some players who turned out great, like Warner. But most of the guys were assigned by NFL teams, which were about 5 guys a year. I remember watching games, and being unimpressed with it.

I would of been happier with Gase, not completely happy, as he is only a 2yr OC vet, with 2 yrs as QB coach, 1 yr with Tebow, and 1 with Manning.

It just feels like the Yorks have gone back to being cheapskates, and don't care about winning, and only the bottom dollar, $$$.

I don't get why people didn't like Fangio as HC, while he never got any other interviews, then news flash, neither did Tomsula, not one other interview for a HC spot. So if I had the choice. I go with the guy who made our Defense top 5 the last 4 years over Tomsula, who had guys like Justin Smith, Ray mcDonald, playing. I would of loved Donatell as DC, and not Tarver, I mean Donatell did great with the DBs, Cox played awesome, and he was a no name, on a 1yr $695K deal. He made Whitner look great out there. Same for Goldson, who was crap before Donatell got here.

This is my summary on Tarver

I love how people look at him and say he had no talent in Oakland, so that's why they sucked, I mean they had Carlos Rogers, tarell Brown, Justin Tuck, Lamarr Woodley, Tyvon Branch, Khalil Mack, Sio Moore all last year, plus LaMarr Houston the year before, they had talent.

And even if not great talent, look at SF, they had 2nd and 3rd stringers playing on D, and Fangio had a great Defense. I just find that search to be so annoying. They had a great DC, and let him go because he was Harbaugh's guy.

Harbaugh, Mariucci, Nolan - almost everyone loved these hires
Erickson, Singletary - most people were optimistic that they'd be OK

Tomsula = the most hated coaching hire in a long time.
So at least you got to give them credit for not being afraid to make an unpopular move.

Originally posted by maxsmart:
Harbaugh, Mariucci, Nolan - almost everyone loved these hires
Erickson, Singletary - most people were optimistic that they'd be OK

Tomsula = the most hated coaching hire in a long time.
So at least you got to give them credit for not being afraid to make an unpopular move.

The major issue with the Tomsula perception is that the 49er standard in 2015 is a lot higher than it was in 2010/2011.

That's how a Singletary hire can look good back in 2008, because the team sucked already. To me that's the only reason Singletary was met with any support (then again it was an interim mid season replacement). Tomsula only had one game as interim.

Look at this another way:

If the Niners dump CK right now and go with an unproven young drafted QB or a Blaine Gabbert, that could have the same overall feel. Some people have even suggested doing just this.

BTW, after thinking about this more and more I truly believe if the Niners nail the OC hire, then the Tomsula promotion could turn out to be really, really good. We will have continuity with a "player's coach" but without any of the downside of Harbaugh's intensity. It does seem like he might even be a better in game situational coach than Harbaugh (how many s**** lost challenges have we had now?).

Finally, since he knows nothing about offense, we know he won't get in the way at least. It kills me that Harbaugh could have hired Kubiak before his brother and we'd have far less f**** problems than we do now.

Anyways, water under the bridge. All in on Tomsula. I look forward to not having to feel bad about our coach anymore in terms of public perception.

Every hire has been mildly dissapointing for me, except Harbaugh. I loved that hire, it had slam-dunk written all over it, and it was for the most part.

Didn't like any of the other hires, mostly because my personal preference is to hire an offensive coach who runs the WCO. The true WCO. My only gripe with Harbaugh is that he used the WCO terminology, but not the concepts or precision that make the WCO what it is.

I believe, generally speaking, that offensive guys tend to be more intellectual, while defensive guys tend to be more rah-rah, go bash your head up against a wall. Not saying that's always true, there are exceptions, but it is common to see that distinction between coaches.

The HC needs to be intellectually superior to the opposing coach. That way, your team has an inherent advantage every time.. Pair that coach with a stud QB, and you'll make the playoffs virtually every year.

Originally posted by LayTheWoodall:

Going from Harbaugh to Tomsula (purely from a front office point of view) feels like when Dallas went from Parcells to Wade Phillips.

Dallas won under wade.. Which is nuts. Wade had some head coaching experience however. Was also a defensive coordinator for the longest time. I believe was an offensive coordinator with his dad in Houston

I loved the Harbaugh hire. I figured most college coaches don't work out but he had NFL experience as a coach and player so he wouldn't make the same mistakes. Also he had fixed every team he has coached and turned them into winners.

I liked the Singletary hire. I thought he would do a good job.

With Nolan i think i remember him being the backup choice so i wasn't all that impressed with the hiring and i remember the talk was about him being a bad interviewer.

I was somewhat okay with the Erickson hiring because he was 8-8 a few years with Seattle (at the time a bad team). I figured he would do well with this team.

I hated the Mariucci firing.

I remember not being happy about Seifert being fired and didn't know what to think of Mariucci. Back then i got very little 49ers news so i had no idea what was going on till he was hired.

Originally posted by TheChozen:

The Tomsula hire feels like the Singletary hire all over again. I can't even explain it but it does. Hopefully Tomsula is smart enough to realize he needs a lot of help and surrounds himself with good, quality coaches.

I also hope Baalke keeps his nose out of it!

Not even close. Tomsula has been coaching for 30 yrs has been on both sides of the ball and has head coaching experience. Also, NFL Europe was a player development league which means he was hired because owners saw that he had a history of developing players. He worked his way up to the NFL and was with our team for 8 years.

Singletary was a public speaking after he retired and was given an LB coaching job just because he played at a high level and maybe because he was a team leader. He had no other exposure to any other positions in the league and more importantly because he wasn't in coaching circles that long he didn't have relationships with other good coaches nor did he know what to look for when hiring up and coming assistants. Tomsula does.

The only perception that I had when I first heard of his hire, is that he was so big on relationships that I was worried he just might hire his poker buddies instead of qualified guys. It looks like I was wrong and he is at least interviewing some nice candidates.

I'll withhold until I see the coordinators that we hire.

It's obvious that Tomsula will mainly be a motivator like Singletary, and will need to be surrounded by guys who can take control of both sides of the ball.

In regards to Nolan, I think he gets a really bad rap around here. Everyone got on his case about his interviews being filled with hot air but what head coach isn't just reciting bs and cliches just to get through an interview. I admit he did crap the bed with how he handled the Alex issue. Everyone that said Harbaughs success has alot to do with inheriting Singletary's team but IMO Nolan developed that team before Sing got ahold of it.

Originally posted by flynhayn15:
Not even close. Tomsula has been coaching for 30 yrs has been on both sides of the ball and has head coaching experience.

People need to stop repeating this nonsense. Tomsula is like 46, no he hasn't been coaching since he was 16 years old.


No his time in NFL Europe doesn't mean a whole lot as much as people might think it does. Seeing as how Steve Spagnuolo and Hue Jackson are the only coaches to have come out of there to be worth a damn, I wouldn't put much stock into it.


Trestman won championships in the CFL and then came to the NFL and sucked it up, and he was actually an experienced NFL coordinator that had coached multiple Superbowl teams.



All this heated rhetoric about Tomsula being some secret, undercover coaching mastermind that's just waiting to get set loose on the world is silly. He's a very good position coach that may or may not work out as a head coach but its amazing how people are trying to embellish his resume to perhaps make themselves feel better about the hire.


If the Cowboys or Cardinals had just hired a new coach and their fans were running around, talking up his NFL Europe creds, you'd be laughing at them and you know it.

Erickson's 2003 team wasn't that bad, the front office wouldn't give the team a competent field goal kicker. With a decent kicker that team makes the playoffs. The following year the roster was blown apart and everyone jumped ship. Throw out the Harbaugh hire and the York family has gone for head coaches with ZERO coaching experience. The team needed a winner to pull off the new stadium and when that happened it's back to the same old, same old. IMO Dr. York is following the script of the movie The Producers, where putting out a flop makes more money. I'm hoping these poor business decisions are cost cutting measures because they are looking to sell the team, if not and it's just plain stupidity and we are in for some tough years ahead.