Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports joined Gary & Larry on KNBR today to expand on his report that Jed York's parents, Denise and John York, will be taking "a more hands-on approach with the team" as they determine how to reposition the franchise. That new involvement may result in the ousting of their son Jed, general manager Trent Baalke, or even head coach Chip Kelly. It may also involve the hiring of former 49ers, Broncos, and Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan in an undetermined role -- possibly as general manager.
La Canfora stated that, besides more fan discord, there has been nothing new since his report from Sunday morning. "When talking to other people around the league this morning, I continue to hear -- while they haven't reached total final conclusions -- I continue to hear more and more thought being given to bringing in someone else to run football operations other than Trent Baalke and empowering that person with the ability to make recommendations about whether or not the coaching staff should stay."
La Canfora was asked what Denise and John would do that their son has not done. "They would extensively hire someone to actually run the football operations on a day-to-day basis," La Canfora said. "There would be someone there, whether it's Mike Shanahan or whomever, who may then themselves decide I should be the coach and executive vice president of football operations," he answered. "But at the very least, there would be someone there, a football man, atop the entire personnel pyramid, who would essentially be a team president / head of football ops, who would be making the day-to-day decisions on the way things operate."
"[Jed York] would be out," La Canfora continued. "He wouldn't be involved in football operations. I mean you can get cute with titles. You can do whatever you think you have to do. But the premise would be, the top of the pyramid would be this person they bring in, to effectively be running the football operation."
La Canfora went on to state that, if this were to happen, Jed would no longer be the face of 49ers football. Someone else would take his place in that role.
There has been a lot of speculation that, should Mike Shanahan be brought in as the general manager, his son Kyle might be brought in as the new head coach.
"Wherever Mike was to end up – and I'm not assuming he definitely does get something – I think his best shot to get something would be San Francisco, but that's not a guarantee. I don't see them as a package deal. There's a lot of people who have advised Kyle, people he respects, in the coaching community, people who have been in the league a long time, even some at the ownership level who have advised that the best move for him was to cut his own path. To sort of be his own man and work somewhere where he's the head coach and not reporting to his dad.
"The plan in Washington was for Mike would do it for three or four years and turn it over to Kyle, but that whole thing got so toxic, Kyle had to break free and spend time with the Browns. And then, obviously, he's done a heck of a job with the Falcons. So I think Kyle will be interviewing for head coaching job, but there would be no shortage of people advising Kyle, 'Don't just hop back in the saddle with your dad.' He needs to kind of break free from some of the cries of nepotism that haunted him in his career."
La Canfora went on to say that Mike Shanahan is desperately trying to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. "He's trying to find avenues to pad his resume and to not have the last stop be as ugly as it was in Washington with literally fighting a proxy war with the owner through the media and fighting the quarterback," said La Canfora.
La Canfora believes that if Shanahan were in control in San Francisco, he would expect a lot of talk about going after New England Patriots backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
You can listen to the entire interview, which also discusses Shanahan's run in Washington, on KNBR.
(h/t to our friend Kevin Jones of KNBR for doing most of the heavy lifting in this story)
