Over the last few days we've had three "official" interviews for the San Francisco 49ers vacant general manager position. Jed York has interview Tony Softli, Mike Lombardi, and Ted Sundquist thus far. Softli interviewed during the day on Tuesday and Sundquist interviewed yesterday. Tuesday night Mike Lombardi interviewed with Jed York for the San Francisco 49ers vacant general manager position. On Wednesday on the NFL Network, Lombardi referred to it as more of a conversation and declared that in his opinion the 49ers would promote current VP of Player Personnel Trent Baalke into the GM position within the next 48 hours.
We're now at that 48 hour mark (give or take) as we await some kind of decision about the 49ers new GM heading into 2011. After the Lombardi comment, Tim Kawakami texted with Jed York about Lombardi's comments and York said the team would take its time to get the right person. We don't really know what that means although Kawakami subsequently tweeted that York told him the team wouldn't hire a GM until after Sunday and might be interviewing Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
As we celebrate New Years Eve tonight (everybody be safe), it sounds like we'll have to wait until next week for some kind of announcement. This extra time does not mean Mike Lombardi was incorrect that Baalke would get the job, but it shows that the timeline is not quite so fixed at this point.
Matt Barrows tweeted that Rick Mueller and Tom Donahoe are potential interviews at this point. Mueller is currently head of personnel for the United Football League with his most recent NFL experience coming with the New Orleans Saints from 2000-2008 as Director and later VP of Player Personnel. Donahoe worked for the Buffalo Bills from approximately 2001-2005 (not an inspiring time period) and before that was director of football operations in Pittsburgh throughout the '90s.
If the team does in fact plan on interviewing into Monday, that would open up a whole bunch of other candidates from all non-playoff teams and from playoff teams with a first round bye. If you're not keeping track, that playoff group will include the Patriots and three of the following: Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans (byes still to be determined). There's a lot of talented personnel guys in that group.
I'm thinking either tomorrow or Sunday morning I'll have a thread up for people to discuss who they want to see win for the purposes of who would be available to interview. If you get a chance today, post some interesting personnel names from those teams and I'll compile some kind of list breaking down the options on each team.