In the midst of their worst season in franchise history, it sure looks like some massive changes could be heading the San Francisco 49ers’ way.
At 1-12 on the year, San Francisco is battling the Cleveland Browns for toilet bowl in the final three weeks of the season. After those three games have concluded, there will be major changes within the team’s organization.
CBS Sports NFL insider Jason La Canfora reported on Sunday that it would be a surprise if general manager Trent Baalke wasn’t fired following the season. The same report indicated that Chip Kelly’s job wasn’t necessarily safe (more on that here).
La Canfora added a bit more context to this in an appearance on a local Northern California radio station on Monday.
“Jed would be out. He wouldn’t be involved in football operations,” La Canfora said, via KNBR. “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.”
The running theory here is that former NFL head coach Mike Shanahan would be tasked with taking over the organization from a player personnel standpoint. At that point, the 49ers would then reassess the roles of both CEO Jed York and head coach Chip Kelly.
In reality, fans in San Francisco have wanted the younger York out for some time now. It started during the entire Jim Harbaugh debacle back in 2014 and has continued ever since. Seen as someone who eats off a silver platter, York has not exactly been highly popular among diehards of the now downtrodden organization.
All this seems to be up in the air. But it makes perfect sense that the 49ers would would to change everything up when it comes to their front office.
It’s been an absolutely disastrous past two-plus seasons for the organization, and the key players currently in positions of power have done nothing to give fans confidence that they will be able to right the ship.