What is the biggest reason for our demise?

Originally posted by RishikeshA:
Harbaugh's departure, Baalke whispering in the kid's ear.

this

Originally posted by TexasNiner:
I give all the blame to Baalke. He thinks he is too damn smart for the room. But he's a home run or bust kind of "hitter". And his batting average sucks. Almost 100% of his gambles or experiments, have failed. Every time he's been smarter than everyone else, and taken a player or position that made everyone go "huh?!!", it has backfired. The players with injury histories who fell in the draft, the "redshirt" projects, the position switchers, they guys drafted way ahead of where they were projected, taking the "Baalke BPA", instead of players who were either a position of need or BPA by everyone else's evaluation, etc..

The vast majority of the losses we had (player wise), we could have predicted. And the surprising ones (other than Davis and Borland) were guys not playing at their best any longer. We could have been prepared for them, if we had drafted positions of need at any point in the last 2-3 years. But in spite of the obvious and overwhelming need to draft impact players at OL, CB, and OLB/DE (for years), and MLB (this year especially), Baalke just puts his blinders on and trust that his late rounds projects will magically turn into all pros.

Well it hasn't happened yet, and shockingly when you can't rush the QB, stop the opposing QB rush at all, or cover tall/athletic receivers or TEs (especially on 3rd down), then guess what? You look like ass and don't win many games.

Every reasonably intelligent fan has seen this coming for 2-3 years. The pessimists have been shouting from the roof tops. The optimists have trusted the front office and our project picks. But there is no one (outside of maybe Baalke) who hasn't seen our issues. The only question was whether or not our late round "steals" and "redshirts" would really be able to help solve those problems. Obviously the answer is a resounding NO.

Baalke's pet projects have failed and failed miserably.

to the bolded.

The 49ers biggest strength was the front 7, and Bowman/Brooks are the only guys left from that and neither are as good as they once were. We're starting a 6th round rookie at corner, and nothing needs to be said about the offense.

I have no idea how these losers won 2 games. I think this is truly one of the worst teams in NFL history.

My opinion is that things started well when Harbaugh first got here and steadily behind the scenes, Harbaughs personality and huge ego probably started becoming more and more difficult to deal with.

Baalke and York probably rather than try to fix it decided that they could put anybody in Harbaughs position and they could win with the talent afforded to them.

I'm pretty sure when the decision to move on from Harbaugh took place. The team wanted the exact opposite of Harbaugh. Somebody less animated. More controlled, thus you got Tomsula.

With that said. I think peeps that think Jed could care less about winning are hilarious. The dude has shown a great passion since taking over for wanting to win. Nobody could have foreseen what would transpire this off season. Most people knew that Gore and Justin may not be back. Who could have predicted Patrick was going to abruptly retire. Especially since last year post injury he was tweeting that he'd be back better than ever.

Even then it was okay because we had a budding star waiting in the wings in Borland who shocked everybody by abruptly retiring. Then we lost two players that were considered top 5 in their position in Anthony Davis and Aldon Smith. One again shockingly retired the next went from 75% dumb@$$ to 100% dumb@$$. Let's also not underestimate the significance of losing Raymac last December.

With losing an exodus of talent like that how is anybody really honestly shocked by what they are seeing on Sundays. You can't just band aid a situation like that in one off season. Also the team was rolling the dice on getting back the 2011-2013,Bowman and that hasn't happened. Its not like he is terrible now but he's not the all pro difference maker that he was.

This is not meant to defend Jed or Baalke because in the end they ousted a terrific coach, difficult to work with or not. But with the surprising retirements and losing Aldon, you can't just say the team is intentially trying to lose. They deserve another year or two to try and replace the talent that they lost. I do agree that we probably need a new coach in place. Its been very disheartening to see the staff in place make zero attempts at adjusting their schemes and line ups. Aside from Tiller who is clearly better than Devy, we still keep playing Devy. And maybe the better replacements aren't on the roster yet, but you still TRY to find out. When starters are the worst in the league at their postion then their back ups can't be much worse can they? That is what has me so down on Tomsula. Not his assistant coaches which many call scrubs. Do I need to remind people that there are multiple ex coordinators on his staff. You don't make it that far in the NFL by being a scrubb. My problem is how little Tomsula and his cordinators have attempted to venture from what's not working. Maybe the positional coaches have a role in that or maybe their suggestions are falling on deaf ears, we're not behind the scenes so who knows.

With that said I will say a fresh start is really needed frim the coaching position. I haven't completely given up on Jed and Baalke yet but I need to see in the coming off season an attempt to stir the ship back in the right direction. Hopefully we do.

Our team is so bad we aren't even sure what is causing what to suck.

But it all stems back to the FO

Aging players, not accounted for with replacements. It is tough to replace Justin, and Patrick. Borland was out of left field. Same for AD. Two huge surprises, plus two guys who could not be replaced. Then Aldon, once again, but this time it was the last time. How do you replace him?

That right there is 5 guys, unreplaceable, all starters. Then Bow's injury and he comes back but a lesser player, definitely slowed down. Ahmed Brook's problems. Sheesh. VD has fallen off badly.

Then there was the last 18 mos of harbaw's regime, where it became painfully obvious he couldn't call an O...yet everything evidently went thru him. Certainly the game plans were his. And, as we found out, he was grossly inadequate as the O caller. Add onto that the "QB whisperer"....if there was one thing harbs wasn't it was a qB whisperer....and he certainly had no idea how to coach up a kid with no NFL like QB experience. Instead, harbaw basked in Kap's newness, which first stumped our opponents, right up until they figured how to defend kap and his spectacular running. Last 18 mos, harbaw had no idea what to do , or how to coach kap. He failed in both. I feel sorry for kap....had he truly had sean payton, or bill bellichek, he very well may have become a great Qb. As it is, he is, regrettably, a mistake. And he was harbaw's pick , with definite plans to replace alex....who was doing well once he got an OL and they played well.

With all our many problems, harbaw gave us another with a raw talented kid with no idea how to play the pro game. That to me, was the start of our problems, not being happy with alex, and finding an Adonis to replace him. Huge mistake. Harbaw had no idea how to coach a raw kid like kap, but he fell in love with his physique. Had he looked deeper, he would have found a very immature young man, with no penchant for studying the playbook...instead, spending time in the weight room. Worked ok initially, but ultimately the Xs and Os, need to be seared into every great QBs brain....they weren't.

The subsequent locker room discord, in part to kap's supposed interest in Aldon's former GF....Cripes, how stupid can a person be? If it had been another player, well hmmm....but aldon's GF? Man a guy has to be especially stupid to do that. Letting his other head think....bad idea always, but much worse here. Whatever, our QB was the cause of this, and it was an avoidable catastrophe.

Finallly, schidt does not flow uphill. It flows downhill. So while harbaw , the OL, kap, and loss of 10 starting players(incl CBs), was tragic, you have to put blame where it all started. And that would be Jed and his family(no idea how much input they have), and Trent....just how much blame goes here, no way of knowing. Easy to say they were the one and only cause, but here, i think everybody gets an equal share of the blame. So, blame everything with 49er on it and you have your answer. In retrospect, i don't think anybody could have imagined the tsunami that was coming, but the signs were there. Subtle, but they were there. So assessing blame is fine, but in fact this was an organizational debacle from the bottom to the top... a better question his, how does one fix this? Fire Jed? nope, you learn as a fan that when you love your team, like it or not you get its owner also. Get a better GM? Maybe, but I can't think of one better who is available...or that i would want.

So, it appears one answer would be to clean house, keeping only the guys who can start now or can give an honest day's work. Staley, kilgore, and get 3 more starters. We got plenty of backups, altho are of not good quality. (some anyway). Clean house with coaches and #!1 job is to hire a red hot OC who can then become our HC (like bruce Arians, bellichek, sean payton)....we just have to find the right OC, and make him OC/HC. Then get a very good DC with good track record. Then get good coaches at all positions.

After the OL, we need one starting DL, and one OLB passrusher, both starters, not projects. Need a RB, starter quality. Need one of the 6 hotshot CBs coming into FA this yr. 2 if we can afford it but i don't think so. And last, as of today, trry GAb as interim, or bridge QB. If he works then we get our franchise qb in 2017, not 2016. Sure, UDFAs but a starting QB...wait til 2017. As for kap, trade him and hope the team that gets him has the coaching to get him up to NFL calber, which he is not at present. The cleveland rumor...well, we can only hope that is true.

Originally posted by ChazBoner:
s**t rolls downhill. baalke and jed are to blame for the s**t hole we're in.

they got lucky signing harbaugh and the NFL not being able to stop the read option for a couple years. Once the NFL adjusted, the 9ers couldn't.

Jed could've spent some money and brought in a legit staff, but instead, decided to save a few bucks and this is the result.

Bingo.

We fired the coach who in his worst season went 8-8, and then pinned our hopes on a DL coach. LOL.

Most of the above ? Can't really blame JT too much (with the players lost et al) but he will be the fall guy.

If Tomsula goes and Baalke gets to stay I might lose my mind. The Teflon Kid (nothing sticks) needs to go.

Harbaugh.

A number of factors played in to the demise of the organization/team, among them:

Poor draft positioning due to being a good team (for three years) and then poor drafting with the 3 years of such poor positioning.

A great core of players whose initial prime years were wasted on bad teams and got old really quick when we were good. Unfortunate injuries.

Coaching that was good enough to utilize the talent we had and get us to the dance, but not good enough to get over the hump and unwilling or unable to evolve as the rest of the league caught up to them. A supposed QB guru who picked the wrong athlete to be an NFL QB and then couldn't re-make him into an NFL QB.

A meddling owner with a big ego, a GM with a big ego, and a good former HC with a big ego that grew tired of working together.

Firing a good coach and his great defensive coaching staff and replacing him with a D-line coach and an inferior overall staff.

Awesome talent at a few positions, but not enough in the right spots to put the team over the top in the three years when we were in the final four.

Actually thinking about it one of the worst things that happened to the Niners was Scott McCloughan having an issue and maybe not just giving him time to sort it out.


Look at those drafts with the Niners, Seahawks and even the last one with the Redskins, man's a genius.

Our organization as a whole is a disfunctional mess an has been for 15 years. Only when we had a control freak an someone who truly believed winning at all cost is the only thing did we function well.

But the Yorks, God bless them. They are one of the most philanthropic families in America, but they just don't know how to run a football franchise. The leaks , the backstabbing, undermining, never saying anything to the fans. No fight to keep a stadium in SF. A young owner who by all means is a good business man but a moron at football relations as well as community relations.

We have just been nominated for community service awards , but he needs to balance football operations an have an interest in a winning franchise.

I blame Coach Harbaugh for hurting little Jed's feelings.

All of the above