In case you didn’t know, 49ers general manager Trent Baalke isn’t very well-liked by the San Francisco 49ers fanbase. Now that we’re due for planes to fly over Levi’s Stadium demanding his sacking and realizing just how bad the roster is, it should not be a surprise everyone is weighing in on the general manager position and where the 49ers should go.
Boomer Esiason was a guest on KNBR Friday and offered his sentiments on the GM position. What he’d do, and if Steve Young (who several fans have asked to take the reigns of the position) would actually be someone to consider if Baalke is let go of. The way he explains Young’s involvement and how Elway got successful is very interesting and it’s worth a listen. Here’s everything he said about the 49ers:
I want to talk about the 49ers even though they are on the bye this week. When you look at Chip Kelly do you see him having a long career in the NFL?
I don’t and I think he stepped into a really bad situation. You talk about the team there and you talk about their defense. First and foremost, every team, I’d like to think, you got to build the defense out. When the 49ers were great four years ago, they had a great defense. It was an assaulting defense it made quarterbacks play faster, forced them into all sorts of turnovers, you couldn’t run on them and that’s one of the reasons why they got to the super bowl. When you watch the defense play right now, you say to yourself, there’s no way int he world that they are even remotely close. Chip is an offensive coach and while I do appreciate the things that he tries to do on offense, because as a quarterback, I would love to be in that situation with the hurry up; heck that’s what we did in Cincinnati all those years. But when you don’t have a defense to kind of support it, now all the sudden you have problems. That’s what happened to him in Philadelphia, and that’s what’s happening to him right now. Let alone the abysmal quarterback play he’s getting from both Gabbert and Kaepernick.
What would you do if you were the GM of the 49ers today?
You know what I’d do? I’d fire myself and hire Jim Harbaugh.
Would you bring in a Steve Young?
I don’t know if Steve wants to do that. I’ve often been asked the question would I be interested in going back to help a team in some way, shape, or form as a coach or a front office guy or any of that kind of stuff. That’s not my world. I don’t want to live that world. I don’t want to live 16 hours every single day, dealing with 53 maniacs and 20 coaches that are lunatics and dealing with general managers and sniping. You know when you’re losing it really gets tough. I have nothing but great respect for Steve, I just don’t know if that’s what he wants to do. I remember when Dan Marino was going to leave to leave “NFL Today” to go run the dolphins and I said “Dan, what in the world are you doing? Why are you doing this? You don’t have to do this, you’re Dan Marino for God’s sakes. YOu walk into a door and they pay you a 100 grand. And you’re the only guy I know that gets paid to endorse pizza AND a diet plan. It doesn’t make any sense.
And Isotoners
Exactly. Down in Miami of all places for gloves. That’s what I would say to Steve Young. He’s so good and he’s so smart and he’s so respected, I don’t even know why you would go there unless if he wanted it. Like, really wanted it. John Elway cut his teeth—say what you want about John Elway, he ran the arena football league team there for years and years and years and years in Denver for Mr. Bowlen who owned the team. So it wasn’t like they handed him the keys and said “Go run this.” He learned how to run a franchise through the AFL. The one thing I can say, and I feel good about it—not only is John Elway one of the greatest quarterbacks who’s ever played. He’s now quicky becoming one of the great judges of talent that the NFL has these days and it’s really great to see a former player doing it.