While controversial, San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York made the right choice firing head coach Chip Kelly after a 2-14 season in 2016.
The San Francisco 49ers will be on their fourth head coach in as many years, following Sunday’s announcement one-and-done head coach Chip Kelly was fired along with general manager Trent Baalke.
CEO Jed York pulled the plug on another head coach and will bear the brunt of its fallout.
And it was the thing York needed to do.
No, this isn’t going to be an indictment piece on how Kelly’s offenses don’t work at the NFL level — sorry, Grant Cohn — nor how on anything Kelly touches outside of college turns to mud. In fact, Kelly did some great things with the Niners offense, detailed here, which is pretty notable considering the shape of San Francisco’s talent-strapped roster.
Instead, York got this right by folding his hand now.
The Niners need a complete top-to-bottom rebuild. Heck, they needed that a year ago. Instead, bringing in Kelly was little more than a stop-gap option — a band-aid on a gaping wound that needed wholesale surgery.
Had York gone the easy route — retaining Kelly and likely promoting assistant general manager Tom Gamble to GM duties — the 49ers probably wouldn’t have been much better than what we saw this season.
It would have been a quick “fix” and not the rebuild the team needs from top to bottom.
Kevin Jones of KNBR 680 elaborated on it more:
"York is getting one thing right: He’s done with the shotgun marriages. Starting fresh with a GM, head coach and quarterback together is the best cohesive way to build a winner from scratch in the NFL. My initial reaction when I heard about the firings on New Year’s Eve — slightly intoxicated — was that York had to have a big name lined up. Because there’s no way he’s going to position himself to play Duck-Duck-Goose again, right?"
Precisely.
A half-effort attempt would have only ensured the carousel of ineptitude would continue.
And even York knows a half-empty Levi’s Stadium, vacant luxury boxes and pulled sponsorships can’t go on forever.
So York erased the board and elected to start over from scratch. Hitting the reset button was exactly what the franchise needed.
But that’s only the beginning.
More from Niner Noise
- 49ers 2023 NFL Draft tracker: Pick-by-pick news and analysis
- Predicting 49ers NFL Draft picks by looking at final mocks
- DraftKings NFL Draft Promo – Win $150 Guaranteed on Any $5 Bet
- 2023 NFL Draft: EDGE Byron Young could be impact player for 49ers
- 5 low-key NFL Draft options for 49ers who are flying under the radar
If York had a track record for making smart football decisions, fans likely wouldn’t worry too much. The thing is he doesn’t. York’s decisions, dating back to the end of 2014, have been wrought with short- and long-term disastrous results.
Maybe, however, the 2016 season is enough to convince York he doesn’t have what it takes to actually run the franchise. And this leads to York letting someone handle the football aspects of the team in future seasons.
Who knows? It’s York’s decision — one which fans hope he gets right. Heck, even his uncle, Eddie DeBartolo, got a lot of things wrong before things went right.
Next: 49ers Officially Fire Trent Baalke, Chip Kelly
And we all hope to know more when the team’s CEO addresses the media at 1 p.m. ET on Monday.