San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York doesn’t have to look too far in order to see how championship-caliber teams are created. Bay Area teams like the Golden State Warriors, San Francisco Giants and Oakland Raiders easily provide the template in the Niners’ back yard.
If San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York wants some examples of how playoff-contending professional teams are made, all he needs to do is look around the Bay Area.
Well, maybe not at the Oakland Athletics. But every other team has something to offer.
The San Francisco Giants (MLB), Golden State Warriors (NBA) and Oakland Raiders are great examples of teams having turned ugly fortunes around. Heck, even the NHL’s San Jose Sharks — last year’s Western Conference champions — could be thrown into the mix.
Remember how York’s press conference featured, essentially, one word? Yeah, all those “culture” references certainly pointed at a team in need of a new direction.
But guess what? Those aforementioned teams have culture. More importantly, they have winning ways and either have, or are setting up, a way to contend for a championship for the foreseeable future.
And while we might wonder about York’s inability to reach out to other executives, owners and front-office types in the area, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to do so.
The San Francisco Giants
Remember back when the Giants were built around one player — Barry Bonds — in the mid 2000s? After a brief postseason run in the early part of the decade, the Giants fell on hard times. Bonds was the only player worth watching. The rest, well, it was bad.
But when Giants executive Larry Baer was named president in 2008, the team underwent a major shift in philosophy and started focusing on drafting solid pitchers and a good defense. Gone were the days of signing veteran, washed-up free agents. They signed Bruce Bochy as manager. And the Giants started to turn things around.
Three World Series championships since 2010 speak to the success. And the Giants still remain a pinnacle franchise in baseball today.
What can York and the 49ers learn from this bunch? Well, a shift in philosophy is a great indicator of what needs to happen. Additionally, Baer is constantly involved in radio appearances and makes transparency a part of what he does. The Giants have established clear, well-known approaches to maintaining relevance. And there’s no doubting a commitment to winning.
That’s something the 49ers don’t appear to have right now. At all.
The Oakland Raiders
In many ways, the Niners of today resemble the Raiders of the late 2000s — a team with a revolving door at head coach and seemingly no discernible direction in sight.
The late owner Al Davis was surely seen as a major part of the problem before his passing in 2011. Since then, his son — and current owner Mark Davis — has been a part of an incredible deconstruction and rebuild.
General manager Reggie McKenzie also deserves a lot of credit for this.
His draft efforts turned a laughingstock Raiders franchise around. Meanwhile, the 49ers completely fell apart under former general manager Trent Baalke.
Just ask 95.7 The Game’s @ZakSports:
https://twitter.com/ZakSports/status/815700443007324160
So what can York and the 49ers learn from this?
Well, first the Niners aren’t quite in as nearly as bad a situation as Oakland was. McKenzie had to spend about two years deconstructing a roster made up of bad contracts and poor signings before cornerstones like quarterback Derek Carr and linebacker Khalil Mack were drafted in the 2014 NFL Draft.
And it doesn’t have to take four- or five-plus years for a complete turnaround. Find a good quarterback and a key player to build around on defense, and there you go. Doing so goes a long way.
The Golden State Warriors
Perhaps no other comparison between two teams is better than the Warriors under former owner Chris Cohan and the current 49ers regime.
Warriors fans will remember this well. The Cohan-era Warriors also went through a slew of head coaches. And the team was in a never-ending rebuild state with no direction in sight.
In a way, Golden State couldn’t get out of its own way. And the comparisons between York’s 49ers and the Cohan-era Warriors are there:
The #49ers, man. Tomsula. Chip. Baalke. All the losses, all the turnover, all the lack of direction.
— Brian Murphy (@knbrmurph) January 2, 2017
It's all so very Cohan Era Warriors.
Under increasing pressure, Cohan sold the Warriors to a new ownership partnership between Peter Guber and Joe Lacob.
Before things got good for Golden State, the team had to trade away its best player — guard Monta Ellis — in 2012 to open up things for an up-and-coming Stephen Curry. This outraged the fans though, and Lacob was nearly booed off the court during a jersey retirement ceremony for the long-time Warriors great, Chris Mullin.
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But look where the Warriors are at now.
York and the Niners can also learn from this. Smart decisions don’t have to be popular as long as the results are there. The Warriors are the pinnacle of NBA elite.
It took vision, a solid general manager and smart moves to make this happen.
Next: 5 Biggest Needs for the 49ers Roster in 2017
Make the call, Mr. York. You have nothing to lose by picking the brains of those executives all around you.