Jed York announced on Yahoo! Sports Talk Live that he and Jim Harbaugh decided to wait until after the season ends to discuss a potential contract extension. This comes a couple days after Coach Harbaugh spoke with Jason Cole, and reiterated his position that he had not asked to be the highest paid coach in the league. York said:
"We actually just had this conversation yesterday. Lots of people were talking to him about it. We just said, 'You know what, let's not do anything during the season. Let's sit down a week or so after the season is over and let everybody know we're not focused on anything that's off the field right now.' Jim and I will sit down a week or so after the season is over and we'll figure out where we go."
This is not a shocking development. Harbaugh is signed for this season and next season, and while there will probably be more random rumors flying around at some point or another, the 49ers have some measure of control in the situation. And given that there is no salary cap for coaches, there really should be no concern about Jim Harbaugh pricing himself out of the 49ers budget.
The 49ers are moving into a new stadium that will be a cash cow. While it is true the 49ers will have a sizable mortgage to pay for the foreseeable future, they have so many revenue streams coming in that if they had to make Jim Harbaugh the highest paid coach in the league, it would not really be a problem. If the 49ers do what we hope and win the Super Bowl, there is no reason not to pay Jim Harbaugh top dollar. He's proven to be a great coach, and a Super Bowl would be the final cherry on top.
We obviously would have loved a Super Bowl any of the last three years, but given the contract situation, it would have been all the better to win one just to remove this distraction. Had the 49ers won a Super Bowl one of the last three years, I have to think an extension would already be done. But instead, we just need to wait and see if the 49ers can get over the top this year.
It makes sense to address this situation now. I don't think Jim Harbaugh would have been distracted by it if negotiations continued, by announcing this now, it will hopefully be out of the picture until potentially February. I'm sure someone will try to start something (I'm looking at you, Florio), but for now we can just focus on this team getting to Lombardi No. 6.