San Francisco 49ers: Ranking the 2016 Head Coaching Vacancies

Front Office

The power struggle that went on in San Francisco two years ago, leading to Jim Harbaugh’s departure, can’t be great for purposes of recruiting a new coach. Nor does giving their latest head coach just one season to prove his worth inspire much confidence, even if the decision to cut free from Jim Tomsula was the right one. Prospective head coaches may not like the idea of coming into a situation where the general manager, Trent Baalke, clearly wields all the power.

However, Baalke has proven to be a more successful general manager than most of his colleagues among these seven teams. He’s proven to be far above average at navigating the draft board and earning extra draft picks, and with the notable exception of letting Delanie Walker go, most of his decisions on players to let go in free agency have been wise.

He’s been more hit and miss when it actually comes to acquiring talent. This year’s free agent crop was underwhelming—Shareece Wright looked like a poor move to begin with and proved to be even worse than that as the season went along, and players like Erik Pears and Darnell Dockett did not exactly positively impact the 49ers’ 2015 season. Still, this is the guy who traded a sixth-round pick for Anquan Boldin, who found Carlos Rogers and Donte Whitner in budget free agency, and is responsible for drafting Mike Iupati, NaVorro Bowman, Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid—his hit-and-miss rate in the draft really isn’t that much worse than most teams.

His recent track record of success—or lack thereof—would have him in the lower half of all general managers, but his competition is low here. The Tennessee Titans and Cleveland Browns have vacancies at general manager, so who knows how competent their staffs will be. The Dolphins just promoted Chris Grier to the general manager position, so that’s still a question mark. Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht just fired the previous head coach after two seasons and has not had any successes in free agency so far. None of those spots seem particularly enticing.

That leaves two other general managers who at least are in the same conversation as Baalke. The Eagles have given the reigns back to Howie Roseman now that Chip Kelly has been fired. While Roseman has had some notable misses in his tenure—notably the assembly of the so-called “Dream Team” that flopped in 2011—he’s more responsible than Kelly for the deep roster currently in Philadelphia.

The Giants, meanwhile, have Jerry Reese, who is on the hot seat after three consecutive losing seasons.  The Giants have historically been slow at making changes—Reese is just the third general manager of the club in the past 37 years—but Reese’s track record may have led to him being fired if he worked for a number of different teams. That slow hook, however, might be appealing to coaches, who know they would likely get at least three years to turn the Giants into contenders before getting fired.

In short, if Jed York honestly is taking a step back from the coaching search and other front office duties, the 49ers might actually have the best front office situation amongst the openings, despite grumblings from the fanbase that Baalke should be replaced. Maybe that isn’t surprising—teams with great front office situations generally don’t have head coaching openings to begin with.

Verdict: Best of a Weak Class

Next: What About the Competition?