49ers great wonders if franchise 'can recover' without Jim Harbaugh
Randy Cross played 13 seasons with the 49ers where he was part of four Super Bowls. He saw firsthand how Bill Walsh and Joe Montana did their thing, and the results were a lot of winning.
By
Ryan Wilson
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2 min read
Randy Cross played 13 seasons with the 49ers where he was part of four Super Bowls. He saw firsthand how Bill Walsh and Joe Montana did their thing, and the results were a lot of winning.
The winning continued when George Seifert and Steve Young succeeded Walsh and Montana, and to a lesser extent when Steve Mariucci and Jeff Garcia succeeded Seifert and Young. But things went south in 2003 with Dennis Erickson, and from 2003 to 2010 the team didn't once finish with a winning record.
In fact, over that eight-season span, the 49ers went 46-82. That all changed when Jim Harbaugh arrived. From 2011-2014, the 49ers went 44-19 (think about that -- they won two fewer games in four fewer seasons), won the division twice, made two NFC Championship Game appearances and were one 4th-down conversion away from a Super Bowl title.
But differences between Harbaugh and 49ers president Jed York led to Harbaugh bolting for the University of Michigan after the 2014 season. Assistant coach Jim Tomsula was promoted and, predictably, he was fired less than a year later after the team stumbled to five wins. Chip Kelly was announced as the newest coach last month but Cross doesn't know if it will matter.
"I'm gonna be honest with you -- I'm not sure if they can recover from that decision to get rid of Harbaugh, which brought on the wave of talent going away, some guys just walking away, others choosing to go somewhere else in free agency," Cross told SiriusXM NFL Radio's Alex Marvez and Zig Fracassi, via TheScore.com.
Not helping: the exodus of on-field talent out of San Francisco, whether due to free agency or retirement.
"The drain out of the building is something -- from a talent standpoint, mentality standpoint, football knowledge standpoint -- that's gonna take them, best-case scenario, at least five or six years to replace," Cross continued. "Line of scrimmage, quarterback, head coach, everything about it.
"I wish (owner Jed York) the best of luck. I think the league's a lot better when the California and Bay Area teams are relevant. But I look at that place right now as being in pretty dire straits when it comes to what's going to happen."
Kelly's first order of business: Figuring out what he has in quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who flourished under Harbaugh but was so lost last season that he was benched for Blaine Gabbert. For what it's worth, York has complete confidence that Kaepernick can return to the form that made him one of the NFL's most exciting young quarterbacks.
"There's no question in my mind," York said last month. "I've always had a very, very high opinion of Kap. Kap's a great kid, he's done a lot of great things for us. And again, this is a fresh start for everybody."
Whether that fresh start will translate into more wins is another matter.
