On Sunday, Jay Glazer of FOX Sports reported that the San Francisco 49ers would fire Jim Tomsula after the end of the regular season. Kyle McLorg of Bay Area Sports Guy followed that up with a report that Trent Baalke would conduct a search for the team's next head coach independent of president Jed York.
After all of that, the rumors about specific head coaches hit hard and fast, and it's safe to say things are going to be fairly crazy around here for some time. But that's not just true for Niners Nation, I've been able to confirm a few things myself related to just how much turmoil exists over in Santa Clara at this time.
Per a source, multiple members of the 49ers coaching and training staffs were instructed to "put on a brave face, though nobody knows who is and isn't fired."
I cannot personally confirm that Tomsula will be let go, and in fact I've heard the opposite for much of the season, but it certainly would not be shocking at this stage. If the decision to fire Tomsula has been made, that decision was made "in the last 48 hours," according to a source, though the decision could obviously have been kept quiet.
That doesn't necessarily imply that there has been indecision above Tomsula, but it does represent a shift from what many have been hearing throughout this season. In December, I did report that members of the coaching staff were unable to make decisions because they were unclear who had final say. "Do I even need to tell you that morale is at an all-time low?" my source joked.
"[We're] supposed to act like everything is normal," a source said. "We're not allowed to even joke about things with players."
It's also unclear where these rules are actually coming from. I tried to find out if they were coming from Tomsula, but as suggested earlier, even these kinds of things were coming from somewhere up top but people lower down were unsure from where. These are "general rules that have made their way to everyone," which have gotten more strict as the season nears its end.