**the official 49ers thread**

[SkillspayBills]

Welp...this is what happens when you get spoiled by a bit of success. You nitpick at small **** and spoil yourself (See:Jimmy Johnson at Miami). Jim will probably bring Michigan back to being a powerhouse withing 5 or 6 years.

[paulf]

Before Jim, we went 6-10 with an 0-5 start to the season. Harbaugh took us to three NFC championship games and a god damn superbowl... where we belong. OVER NIGHT.

We had a bad year. So what? You don't build a franchise by firing your best people every time you have a bad year. ****, never thought I'd say this, but look at the ****ing Cowboys; they stayed the course and now that they've got all these pieces in place they're on fire.

As a 49ers fan, I'm devastated. Harbaugh was our savior.

[-MAKAVELLI-]

Before Jim, we went 6-10 with an 0-5 start to the season. Harbaugh took us to three NFC championship games and a god damn superbowl... where we belong. OVER NIGHT.

We had a bad year. So what? You don't build a franchise by firing your best people every time you have a bad year. ****, never thought I'd say this, but look at the ****ing Cowboys; they stayed the course and now that they've got all these pieces in place they're on fire.

As a 49ers fan, I'm devastated. Harbaugh was our savior.

you can still cheer for him in Oakland while he turns my Raiders around

[extracurRICular]

Before Jim, we went 6-10 with an 0-5 start to the season. Harbaugh took us to three NFC championship games and a god damn superbowl... where we belong. OVER NIGHT.

We had a bad year. So what? You don't build a franchise by firing your best people every time you have a bad year. ****, never thought I'd say this, but look at the ****ing Cowboys; they stayed the course and now that they've got all these pieces in place they're on fire.

As a 49ers fan, I'm devastated. Harbaugh was our savior.

You can say that again............

[paulf]

you can still cheer for him in Oakland while he turns my Raiders around

Like a lot of people, I've got my eye on the Raiders. I know is a sin to support both teams, but I've kind of been rooting for them since a good friend, who was a massive Raiders fan, passed away a few years ago.

As for the Niners....

On Monday, 49ers CEO Jed York said that, if the team doesn’t win Super Bowls without Jim Harbaugh, York should be held accountable.

On Tuesday, Brian Murphy of KNBR radio did, without waiting to see whether the team wins Super Bowls without Jim Harbaugh.

Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle has a partial transcript of the pleasantly contentious 17-minute interview with the team’s flagship radio station; the full interview can be heard right here. (And you should listen to it.)

The interview started by digging into a major disconnect regarding the reason for the divorce. York consistently called the parting mutual; Murphy kept pointing to Harbaugh’s comments from Sunday’s post-game press conference regarding the fact that he works “at the pleasure of the organization.”

While Murphy ultimately didn’t buy the idea that the parting was mutual, the truth is that the joint press release issued minutes after Harbaugh’s most recent citation to working “at the pleasure of the organization” characterizes the parting as truly mutual, with quotes from Harbaugh and no suggestion from him to the contrary in the press release that the decision was anything but mutual. But York didn’t make that point clear enough to keep Murphy from continuing to bring it up, and York never got off the ropes after that initial barrage.

Asked about making winning the most important factor for the organization, York said it’s more important to win with class, a not-so-subtle suggestion that Harbaugh was in some way keeping them from winning with class. Still, York never specifically identified anything Harbaugh did or said to result in the outcome. At one point York vaguely pointed to differences in “football philosophy” between the franchise and Harbaugh as the reason for the split, but York declined to get into any specifics regarding the precise reason for the decision to part ways with Harbaugh.

Eventually, Murphy seized on York’s comment from the Monday press conference about accountability.

“You kept saying, “Hold me accountable, hold me accountable, hold me accountable,'” Murphy said. “And a lot of people asked me — and they were right — how can we hold you accountable? Does that mean you refund PSLs, does that mean you give away beer for free, does that mean you resign? How can we — we can’t hold you accountable. What does that mean? Does that just mean verbal tongue lashings on the air? How can we hold you accountable in any meaningful way?

“Well, I mean, you’re trying to give me a verbal tongue lashing now,” York said. “I’m not sure what else to tell you on how to hold me accountable.”

“You said you want to be held accountable. A lot of people said, ‘I’m a season-ticket holder. I wanna know, how can I hold him accountable?'” Murphy said.

“I’d love to hear from fans,” York said. “I’d love to hear from them — if you have suggestions for me. If you have thoughts about what we can do better. And if you think that we’re not performing to a level, you can let me know. And you can decide the best form that you can communicate that with me.”

York should be careful what he wishes for. Because if/when the team doesn’t appear in three straight conference championship games in the first three years with a new head coach, York will be hearing from 49ers fans. Pretty much everywhere he goes.

Meanwhile, it won’t be easy to attract the kind of coach who’ll get the team to three straight conference championship games. Any coach good enough to do it will know that he’s already been set up by the circumstances to fail.

That’s why the Raiders’ coaching job is currently the more attractive Bay Area football position. In Oakland, there’s nowhere to go but up. In San Francisco, there’s nowhere to go but down.

[Sweet Pea 50]

This off-season will be interesting.

This season just was a cluster, and the blame can't be placed solely at the feet of Harbaugh. Too many injuries, and having to fight the front office.

He annoyed me at times, but he is a very good coach, and wish him well in the future.

As long it isn't Dallas, we cool.

[extracurRICular]

Like a lot of people, I've got my eye on the Raiders. I know is a sin to support both teams, but I've kind of been rooting for them since a good friend, who was a massive Raiders fan, passed away a few years ago.

As for the Niners....

Ive been looking for the audio of this............

[extracurRICular]

For the foookin luv of fooookin Jeeebuz what the foookin fooook is going the fook on????? are you foookn serious right fookin now????
FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKKKKKKKK


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/sp...rees.html?_r=0

It is an off-season like no other in the National Football League. Young players, with many games and millions of dollars ahead of them, are walking away from the country’s most popular sport.

Linebacker Chris Borland of the San Francisco 49ers, one of the top rookies in the N.F.L. last season, is the latest case yet, and perhaps the most noteworthy. He said Monday that he was leaving football because of concerns about his safety.

“While unexpected, we certainly respect Chris’s decision,” Trent Baalke, the 49ers’ general manager, said in a statement Tuesday. “From speaking with Chris, it was evident that he had put a great deal of thought into this decision.”

Borland’s decision, which was first reported by ESPN, came just days after Patrick Willis, a seven-time All-Pro linebacker also with the 49ers, announced that he would retire rather than risk further injury.

Cornerback Cortland Finnegan of the St. Louis Rams, quarterback Jake Locker of the Tennessee Titans and linebacker Jason Worilds of the Pittsburgh Steelers have all retired this off-season as well.

But Borland, 24, who played at the University of Wisconsin, is the youngest and most promising of the players to leave the N.F.L. this off-season.

“From what I’ve researched and what I’ve experienced, I don’t think it’s worth the risk,” Borland told ESPN.

Many veteran players have cited the physical toll of football as they have stepped away, but rarely have so many young players left the league with so much of their careers ahead of them. Worilds, who was paid $9.75 million by the Steelers in 2014, was expected to sign a big contract with another team as a free agent.

Borland stands out because of how explicit he was regarding his concerns about head injuries. As evidence has mounted in recent years linking blows sustained on the field with long-term cognitive disability, the league has scrambled to find an appropriate response. For years, N.F.L. officials disputed the work of independent researchers and refused to acknowledge any connection. More recently, the league has tweaked rules to try to mitigate some of the most jarring blows to the head.

Borland, who is from Kettering, Ohio, and was ranked sixth in career tackles at Wisconsin, had a stellar first year after being drafted in the third round of the N.F.L. draft. He won rookie of the week honors twice and was defensive rookie of the month in November. He earned the league-minimum $420,000 and a bonus of $154,000, according to Overthecap.com.

Several current and retired N.F.L. players expressed support for Borland on social media. “I loved Chris Borland’s game but I can’t fault him for calling it quits,” Chris Long, a defensive lineman on the Rams, said on Twitter. “His concerns are real. Still, it takes a man to do the logical.”

Donte’ Stallworth, who last played in 2012 after a 10-year career with six teams, saw Borland’s retirement as a result of growing awareness of the potential long-term cognitive damage facing players. “Players today are more concerned now than ever before regarding brain trauma and health issues,” he said on Twitter. “It’s scary!”

Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story
The average career in the N.F.L. is about 3.5 years, but that includes players who try out for teams in training camp yet fail to make a team as well as those who last a dozen or more years.

The N.F.L. and N.F.L. Players Association do not keep precise figures on why players retire. Some are cut by teams and fail to be re-signed, while others are injured and cannot play.

The N.F.L. said that players who are drafted in the first round play for an average of almost nine years, while players who make it to an opening day roster average close to six years in the N.F.L.

Continue reading the main story
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In a statement, Jeff Miller, the senior vice president for health and safety policy, said that “playing any sport is a personal decision.”

But, he added: “We are seeing a growing culture of safety. Everyone involved in the game knows that there is more work to do, and player safety will continue to be our top priority.”

The N.F.L., with its opportunity for million-dollar paydays, will remain a draw for parents and players across the country, particularly in states like Florida and Texas where football remains immensely popular and the best way to secure a college scholarship.

But the increasing evidence of links between repeated head trauma and long-term cognitive problems has persuaded more parents to steer their children into sports like baseball, basketball and soccer, and the decision by a highly regarded player like Borland to leave the N.F.L. at a young age might accelerate that trend.

A recent Bloomberg Politics poll found that half of Americans did not want their sons playing football. A separate survey by Robert Morris University showed that nearly half of those polled said that boys should not be allowed to play tackle football until they reached high school.

The increasing specialization in youth sports may also be having an effect. As more children concentrate on a single sport all year, they are becoming more prone to injury and burnout, said Brandon Huffman, the director of recruiting for Scout, a website that tracks football players from youth leagues to the N.F.L.

“The arms race for college scholarships has led to a real physical strain,” he said. “You’ve got parents who are putting their kids in youth football at 6 or 7, and they’re trying to stretch the age limits. When kids get to high school and college, they lose their passion.”

Overspecialization did not appear to be the case with Borland, who told ESPN that he had received diagnoses of two concussions before arriving at Wisconsin. One was sustained while playing soccer in eighth grade and the other was while playing football in high school.

[BERNIE'S CORNER]

Been waiting on this thread and..................

[-jose-]

I'm not looking forward to see how next season is gonna play out