(Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports)
The San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh has decided to return to the college game and become the head coach of the University of Michigan. We now know this because the 49ers announced it on Twitter. It was a curt and inexplicable use of 140 characters.
Harbaugh’s time in San Francisco was remarkable. He had 44 wins in four seasons. Forty-four wins in his first four seasons ties him for second most by any head coach – ever.
Three years of consecutive NFC Championship games. A trip to a Super Bowl. A prodigy quarterback joined with a prodigy coach. There was so much progress made in San Francisco under Harbaugh’s leadership. And yet a year ago the 49ers were in talks with the Browns about the possibility of a trade that would send Harbaugh to Cleveland.
The relationship between Harbaugh and the 49ers management had irrevocably turned. It deteriorated privately, boiled over publicly, and as San Francisco floundered it became clear that the situation was untenable.
So San Francisco loses one of the best coaches in the NFL, likely to Michigan.
(Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Let that wash over you for a moment. A man who had accomplished more in his first four seasons in the NFL than nearly any other coach in history is now going to coach a college team who finished the season 5-7.
How could this possibly happen? How could 49ers CEO Jed York let the best thing to happen to his franchise in over a decade walk out the door?
York and Harbaugh’s was a strange and complicated relationship. It could perhaps be best summarized by this quote York gave Rich Eisen.
“We’re focused on getting back to and winning the Super Bowl,” York said. “That’s really the only thing that’s on anybody’s mind here. I’ve said this all along: I would like for nothing else to be in the worst negotiating position possible with Jim.”
At face value, York is probably being genuine. He wants a Super Bowl. He would reward Harbaugh if he gave him a Super Bowl.
But through four years, Harbaugh hadn’t delivered. He came close but couldn’t pull through.
The irony of course is that this team, these players, and this staff could have won a Super Bowl. Now that Harbaugh is gone, the odds of either man lifting a Lombardi trophy have plummeted.
What a waste.
