How could we have this much talent with Baalke as the GM since 2010 and VP of Player Personnel before that?
OFFENSE
2011-- 8th In Rushing, 29th in passing (Alex's 1st year under Harbaugh)
2012-- 4th In Rushing, 23rd in passing (Kap's 1st year)
2013-- 3rd In Rushing, 30th in passing (Kaps 1st full year)
DEFENSE
2011- Rank #4
2012- Rank #3
2013- Rank #5
TEAM TURNOVER RATIO
2011- San Francisco #1 (NFC Title)
2012- San Francisco #8 (NFC Title)
2013- San Francisco #4 (Super Bowl Appearance)
The bottom line is, Baalke built this team with this EXACT philosophy in mind and I'm willing to bet, he's going to do it again...don't believe me?
Defense and running game wins championships:
"I've always believed that defenses win and run game wins. You have to be able to stop the run. You have to be able to run the football and you have to be able to play good defense. You've got to get off the field on third down. If you can get off the field on third down and you're good at stopping the run and you can run the ball effectively, you've got a great chance to win a lot of games in the National Football League. "You can never have enough pass rushers," he said. "We obviously didn't generate a lot of pressures or sacks last year. But it's always an area you're going to look to improve in. I don't care if we have five of them, if there's a sixth one, we're going to take him. You're going to try to upgrade that ability on your football team. "
On "managing" QB's:
"Go back in history and tell me there's five a year who come out and are game ready. I'll tell you that you're lying," Baalke said. "It doesn't happen. You're lucky if there's one (rookie QB) that's ready to come in and is ready to start on Sunday. It's a different ballgame."
In short, his formula is simple...build up the DL and OL's and stop teams on defense, generate turnovers, run the ball at will on offense and manage the passing game with your QB (protect the ball; timely passing). Can anyone argue that winning formula over the past 5 years or so? It's been THE dominant formula for winning Superbowls.
[ Edited by NCommand on Feb 29, 2016 at 8:05 AM ]