The San Francisco 49ers wrapped up their joint practices with the Denver Broncos on Thursday, and one of the media members in attendance was MMQB’s Peter King. He is making his way around the country to see each team, and a joint practice combines two teams into one visit.
He put together his 49ers-specific notes earlier today, and he had an interesting nugget about Chip Kelly and Trent Baalke.
Kelly seems happier here. Not that I found him miserable in Philadelphia, but you can tell he trusts Trent Baalke more than he did Howie Roseman and his Eagles’ personnel staff. He raves about the support staff, too. I’ll always think the Eagles pulled the plug too soon, and Kelly has an extremely difficult job making a good offense out of the elements he has here. But I think given his druthers, he’d rather be in San Francisco than Philly.
We’ll have to talk with Mark Saltveit to get more thoughts on the Eagles front office, but at first glance, this is not exactly a shocking revelation. Trent Baalke is a scout at heart, seemingly enjoying spending time going to college games and scouting talent. He’s the general manager, and thus has plenty of managerial responsibilities, but we frequently hear about how he is on the road doing his thing. I would not be surprised if having that kind of “football person” as general manager makes life a little easier for Kelly. It seems like Baalke and Kelly are closer football fits than Kelly was with Roseman.
This whole thing could very well fall apart in the near future. And this doesn’t preclude Baalke potentially getting fired at some point if the young talent does not develop sufficiently. But for the time being, I think we can at least see a positive relationship with these two.