San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Eric Mangini met with the media on Wednesday, and it should surprise nobody that he got questions about Trent Baalke. On Tuesday, Jimmie Ward and Jaquiski Tartt spoke with the media, and mentioned that Baalke is frequently down at practice, and sometimes will coach the players on technique and other issues. Of course, Mangini was going to get questions about it.
Mangini played it pretty well. He said that most of the general managers he has been around in his career spent time on the practice field in a similar fashion. He mentioned that Baalke talks with all the players, and it is not something that surprises him. He was asked if that got in the way of the rest of the coaches, but he generally seemed fine with it. He did mention that the GM has a bit wider berth, similar to how the owner or other higher-up officials can sort of come and go as they need to. My first thought was to snicker at the idea of Jed York coaching players on technique!
But seriously, I really would not have expected much else from Mangini. I'll have a full transcript later. You could read a little into it as though Mangini was saying other GMs were observing, but not necessarily coaching, but people will infer what they want. It is not surprising Baalke would spend a lot of time on the field, but obviously it still seems a little odd that he would be down there actively coaching players. But hey, when you're general manager, you can kind of do what you want.