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Yesterday, we were treated with the news that the 49ers have hired former Oakland Raiders WR Ronald Curry to serve on the coaching staff. He will be an offensive assistant, adding a new member to what has been a strong offensive staff.
This got me thinking, though, about how long this staff will actually be in place. It seems like every offseason, a group of writers (who are smart and usually know what they are talking about) float around the idea that Greg Roman is so close to getting a head coaching job somewhere. Every offseason, we sort of await the inevitable. "Well, he did interview with such and such team..." And yet, every offseason he is not hired away.
What seems especially puzzling is the fact that his strengths point toward, potentially, a good head coaching career. In general, Roman does an excellent job of maintaining a complex offensive system/playbook that causes problems for opposing defenses while being mutable enough to encourage different types of talent to be successful. I mean, even when you look at his weaknesses, like overly-ambitious play calling, they seem to be problems that wouldn't arise as a head coach. As a coach, he can still be the man with an offensive vision, who can sculpt a strong offensive system, without running into problems like calling for an option sweep five yards away from the endzone, delivered by a young QB to a WR with horrible hands.
And speaking of having a young QB, I would have thought that the way Roman handled the switch from Alex Smith to Colin Kaepernick would have almost guaranteed that Roman would get a job elsewhere. As we were all worried about last season, that is no easy task to accomplish. Surely somebody somewhere perked up.
And maybe, as I have seen a few people argue, Roman really was screwed by his success. Teams didn't want to wait until after the Super Bowl to hire people, no matter how good of a job they do. And this likely helps the 49ers. I just don't think it can last. Eventually this staff will be plundered.
Who will be the first notable name to go?