Jim Tomsula salary near bottom of NFL ranks

In news that is not remotely shocking, Matt Maiocco is reporting Jim Tomsula is scheduled to earn $3.5 million per yearas the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers. According to Maiocco, only Gus Bradley, Mike McCoy and Ron Rivera make less than Tomsula.

Plenty of people will quickly jump on this as a sign the 49ers are going cheap, reverting to the days of John York. The drop from Jim Harbaugh's $5 million per year certainly makes it easy to jump to that conclusion, but in some ways I agree with what Maiocco said about the money issues:

Regardless, I don't think move from Jim Harbaugh was about money. It had more to do with working relationship/compatibility with upstairs.

— Matt Maiocco (@MaioccoCSN) January 19, 2015

Personal relationships are an important aspect of this coaching change. I think Trent Baalke and Jed York viewed Jim Harbaugh as a good coach, but not good enough to put up with his personality quirks. They view Baalke's philosophy as what they want to build upon, and they want a coach who will agree with that. In promoting Jim Tomsula, the expected result is a lower salary. After all, his lack of coordinator experience means he will inherently get a lower salary. It is obviously a benefit, but I don't think the switch was made just to save $1.5 million per year.