How did the Jim Harbaugh-Trent Baalke breach open up? Let’s go back through it: Owen Marecic, A.J. Jenkins, Aldon Smith…
Posted on February 25, 2014 by Tim Kawakami
Let’s start this with a few important points to remember as we assess the ripple effects from the Jim Harbaugh/49ers Continuous Tumult Tour:
* Harbaugh and Trent Baalke formed a decent bond at the end of Harbaugh’s Stanford tenure to the point that Baalke was essentially pre-approved by Harbaugh’s camp before Jed York promoted Baalke to GM… and then negotiated to hire Harbaugh.
Both Harbaugh and Baalke were represented by agent David Dunn at the time, though Baalke has never publicly acknowledged it that I know of, and I’m not sure if the GM still has that relationship with the power agent.
Dunn is definitely still Harbaugh’s agent.
But Baalke and Harbaugh were pretty close (running and racquetball pals) at least through the first few months of their regime, though in a bit I’ll outline when and where the relationship might’ve started to fray.
* I was surprised at the time–and remain surprised–that Harbaugh ever took less than Carroll’s $6M per in that initial deal. That’s on him; his negotiation.
I’ve also recently heard that the original framework in 2011 was a four-year deal… and then Harbaugh and his agent walked away from the talks to hear from the Miami Dolphins. When he returned to the 49ers talks, the team upped the deal to 5 years and the salary to $5M per, and that’s what Harbaugh signed.
If Harbaugh had kept it to 4 years, he’d be a total free agent after this coming season, and that would be massive leverage right now. Actually would’ve been massive leverage last year–because you don’t want a guy like that going into his walk season.
But Harbaugh and Dunn negotiated that deal in 2011 with pretty much max leverage (University of Michigan, Stanford and the Broncos all knocking on his door, in addition to the Dolphins and 49ers), so any non-positive long-term result of it is on them.
* Harbaugh never asked for personnel powers during those negotiations and he hasn’t asked recently, I’m told.
He doesn’t want to be a GM–you think he wants to put together draft boards, review 30 game tapes of potential 6th-rounders from New Mexico or spend all of March going to Baylor/Maryland/Colorado/Nebraska pro days and gossiping with college coaches and other execs?
No, he does not.
Harbaugh also wants no part of actually negotiating with players for new contracts; in fact, the Harbaugh strategy is partly to set other execs up for blame when these things occasionally and inevitably break down.
It’s not a new strategy and it almost always works–the coach wins locker room support, the players grumble about the execs and maybe new, cheaper, younger and better players arrive, anyway.
Win-win for the coach, right?
* What Harbaugh is looking for, without specifically saying so or asking for it, is a personnel guy who fits his style at this point.
It was Baalke for a time, but that time might have come and gone and now the two men have to just grit through the last period of their tenure together.
They can still win big together, but the friction just means that the clock is ticking for how long it can possibly last. It was always ticking, but now it’s just out in the public view.
* Why wouldn’t Jed York heavily consider dumping Baalke if it would make Harbaugh happier with the 49ers? Well, you’re never sure that you can find a personnel guy as good as Baalke (and despite his well-publicized misses, he’s an excellent personnel guy).
Plus, a great point by the Sac Bee’s Matt Barrows, who once was kissed on the head by Harbaugh but I won’t hold that against either of them: If York dumped Baalke to please Harbaugh, history says Harbaugh probably would just feud with the next guy in that role, anyway.
Maybe Mike Lombardi was/is that guy, or at least he and Joe Banner thought that recently, but now they’re both fired and Harbaugh probably was never that interested in bolting to Cleveland, anyway.
He wants to win a Super Bowl. He is burning to win a Super Bowl.
Through whatever chilly moments Harbaugh has to endure or will cause with the 49ers–and Baalke and York–remain the best shot at it. Because they’re burning to win a championship, too, and sometimes when everybody’s so hot and bothered, fires will start.
–OK, to the larger issue: What specifically has caused the tension between Harbaugh and Baalke?
I’ve written a lot about the strains and frictrion, but while doing some radio interviews recently it became clear to me–thanks to some very good questions–that I haven’t really detailed how and why this might’ve happened, incident to incident.
First off, only Baalke and Harbaugh really know exactly why they went from hill-running inseparables in March 2011 to dealing with each other suspiciously and only when necessary in November 2013…
But after talking with people who know them, I can fill in some of the picture, I think…
* They are totally different kinds of football maniacs, and I mean “maniac” in a positive way, yes I do.
They’re both incredibly driven, incredibly intense football-lifers, who are consumed by the sport and by the pursuit of victory, with very strong and mostly similar ideas of how to do it, and that’s how they’ve built to the 49ers to this high standing so quickly and so lastingly.
But when two football maniacs start butting heads, they also have nowhere else to go in the relationship. You think they’re going to go watch movies together or hold cook-outs? Nope.
Football is the only thing for both men and when they begin to disagree on football matters, even the littlest things become epic battlegrounds and the guy who loses the battle remembers it forever, so it only builds towards the next battle and the next one…
* Harbaugh is impulsive and loves to create chaos and man-to-man confrontations, because he’s better at navigating a chaotic situation than anybody else and he thrives in an atmosphere of top-speed competition.
It’d be tough for any executive to deal with him on a day-to-day basis over the long-term. Which Harbaugh himself tacitly acknowledges–for instance, once Harbaugh was established as a prime NFL coaching candidate (after 2009 or so), he never considered Al Davis’ entreaties.
Al Davis called Harbaugh in the days before Harbaugh took the 49ers job in January 2011. As the story goes, Harbaugh never called him back, partly I’m told because he just didn’t want to say no to one of his mentors, but also because he didn’t like how the Raiders were being run so he didn’t want to waste time with the conversation (or hurt Al’s feelings).
* One way Harbaugh has created some 49ers chaos: He can fall in and out of love very quickly with players, even some of the 49ers’ top players. I’ve heard he has occasionally stormed into personnel offices suddenly demanding that the team make dramatic changes, just like that.
Which is not at all how Baalke operates, and he was pushed back at Harbaugh every time that has happened. And Baalke has control of the roster, of course.
Baalke is highly, coolly analytical and always wants things to be put in order to the highest magnitude. (Example: In his press conference appearances, Baalke habitually rearranges reporters’ tape recorders to make sure they’re set up in a clean straight line in front of him. He laughs about it, but he always does it.)
Could the GM handle the situation with Harbaugh more adroitly? Yes, no question, but again, that’s not Baalke. He’s not a charmer or a subtle angle-player; he’s a grinder.
Harbaugh in many ways admires that about Baalke, but it also means that when they are at loggerheads, all they do is knock into each other. Which is where they have found themselves for the last year or so.
Baalke believes in numbers, stats, schemes and measurable calculations, and he believes every roster, including the best ones, have to keep turning over to keep things fresh and the payroll under control.
* If I had to point to one player where Baalke and Harbaugh might’ve first found disagreement, I’d point to former Stanford FB/LB Owen Marecic, who Harbaugh described as ”the perfect football player” when he both were at Stanford.
Well, in the 49ers’ first Baalke/Harbaugh draft, in 2011, the 49ers took a running back in the fourth round, but it wasn’t Marecic. It was Kendall Hunter at #115. Marecic went 9 picks later to Cleveland (those guys again!).
Harbaugh was been very even-handed about his former Stanford players in personnel discussions, I believe, but Harbaugh admitted back then that he would’ve liked to acquire Marecic and it just didn’t happen.
After that, I’ve heard Harbaugh frequently pushed to acquire Marecic, which finally bore fruit last training camp, after the Browns cut Marecic and the 49ers signed him. Then they quickly released him.
You know what? Harbaugh kept asking for him.
After Bruce Miller’s injury last season, Baalke agreed to see if Marecic would sign late last season… but at that point Marecic decided he didn’t want to play football any more.
* The 2012 draft was not Baalke’s finest hour–A.J. Jenkins and LaMichael James were the 1st- and 2nd-round picks, and that was just a start of the fizzle–and I don’t think Harbaugh has been thrilled with Baalke’s draft judgments ever since.
I don’t believe Harbaugh argued against taking Jenkins; I think he trusted Baalke’s pick, and when it busted, in retrospect, the trust started to wane, perhaps especially when Harbaugh saw other WRs in that draft class succeeding (and Jenkins doing nothing).
I also believe the personnel department was a little frustrated with the way the coaching staff dismissed Jenkins right away, though Jenkins has done nothing since his trade to Kansas City to justify anything.
* Harbaugh is a rabid defender of his players, and while Baalke also does much to protect the players, I’ve reported that there was a disconnect in the Aldon Smith situation.
Baalke and the rest of the 49ers management decided to let Smith play only two days after his arrest, to keep him on track to recovery and make sure he knew he had their support, but Baalke believed Smith would play sparingly vs. Indianapolis.
Smith played all 72 defensive snaps, then went into rehab.
* Harbaugh has repeatedly made public requests that the 49ers give veteran players new deals, with increasing boldness, and I’ve read that as direct shots at Baalke’s stewardship.
This is part of the normal coach/GM dynamic I mentioned at the top, but specifically when Harbaugh uses a press conference moment to bellow “pay the man!” when asked about kicker Phil Dawson… well, that was a little obvious.
I think Harbaugh is sensitive to the mood of the locker room, as he should be, and when respected vets like Dashon Goldson or Isaac Sopoaga can’t land deals with the 49ers after good seasons, and Carlos Rogers is asked to take a pay cut, I’m sure other players start to look around and wonder.
Baalke has to be sensitive to that, too, but he also has to make sure the 49ers don’t get locked into chunky deals with declining players. It’s the way the dynamic goes. Somebody has to be the bad guy and Harbaugh has made sure the players know it’s not him.
* Baalke has given Harbaugh general personnel leeway at one position–quarterback–and though Harbaugh is a tremendous QB evaluator, things got very manic with the back-up spots last season, which Baalke had to step in and end eventually.
I don’t think Baalke liked doing it and I don’t think Harbaugh appreciated Baalke doing it.
* This just a theory, but knowing the way Harbaugh operates, I think it’s possible he was not fully on-board with trading Alex Smith last off-season, though Smith was fated to be Colin Kaepernick’s back-up if he stayed.
Baalke and York decided it was best for the 49ers and for Smith to let him be a starter somewhere else, and Baalke negotiated a killer deal with KC–turned out to be two 2nd-round picks for a back-up QB.
* Harbaugh’s habit of riling up opponents has caused Baalke some irritation–and forced him to make some conciliatory phone calls after particularly impulsive Harbaugh events.
These would include the Harbaugh-Jim Schwartz “over-enthusiastic” post-game handshake and Harbaugh’s jibe at the Seahawks after several Seattle players flunked PED tests, saying ”you always want to be above reproach.”
–Summary: Any single one of these things (and there are many more, no doubt) are far from game-changers for any coach-GM relationship, but it’s the accumulation that creates the real conflict.
Grudges can last forever with high-powered men, and Harbaugh and Baalke have journeyed a lot of distance in three seasons, with building emotion.
They’ve also won a lot of games. I think they will continue to do so for at least one more season. But you want to know why it isn’t fated to go much longer than that? This is why.
, Denver (plus-17), Detroit (plus-13), Cincinnati (plus-11) and St. Louis (plus-7) are next.
