San Francisco 49ers: Jim Harbaugh Leaves with a Win, but the Future Is Uncertain
This is how the San Francisco 49ers’ 2014 season ends—for the first time since 2010, there will be no postseason appearance, no Super Bowl run, and no great accolades. Set your calendar for Feb. 17 and the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, because that’s the next time that anything happening in the NFL will actively impact the 49ers in any way.
Jim Harbaugh is officially the former coach of the San Francisco 49ers, with the coach and team mutually parting ways immediately after Sunday’s game. Unlike the last head-coaching change when Harbaugh replaced Mike Singletary, the expectations on the next coach to take up the reigns will extraordinarily high. If whoever the new coach is doesn’t take the 49ers to at least the NFC Championship Game, everyone involved in this transition will look worse coming out of it.
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At least the 49ers ended the season on a high note, beating the Arizona Cardinals, 20-17. It was a hard-fought victory over a playoff-bound opponent, preventing Harbaugh from leaving town with a losing record. There were some issues—Ryan Lindley, at times, looked like a world-beater against an injured and depleted 49ers defense—but all in all, it was a game that boded well for the future
Colin Kaepernick threw a couple touchdown passes, and Frank Gore rumbled for more than 100 yards in what might be his last game in a 49ers uniform, passing the 11,000-yard barrier for his career. There were signs, at least in places, of the team that was in the NFC Championship three consecutive seasons.
This game won’t exactly go down in history as one of the most memorable. It’s a forgettable coda to a lost season.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that 2015 will be a lost season, however, even with the seemingly inevitable coaching change. Excluding streaks that ended this year or are still active, there have been 71 times when a franchise with three or more consecutive playoff appearances missed the playoffs the next season. Twenty-five of those teams only had a one-year hiatus from playoff contention.
That’s only a 35 percent return rate, which doesn’t sound great, but there are two factors to keep in mind. First of all, only 37.5 percent of all teams make the playoffs in general, so it’s not like these teams are suffering larger-than-usual hangovers after making the playoffs. Secondly, the list of teams stretch back to 1933, when only two teams made the “playoffs”. If you only include the 35 teams to be in the 49ers’ situation since the playoffs expanded to 12 teams in 1990, they have a 40 percent return rate—better than expected.
This includes one instance of the 49ers involved in a one-year playoff sabbatical, when they missed the playoffs in 1991 during the transition from the Joe Montana to Steve Young at quarterback. It also includes more recent teams which might be instructive. The Baltimore Ravens, for example, made the playoffs from 2008 to 2012, missed last year, and made a triumphant return this year. The New Orleans Saints, Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots have made similar moves in the past decade.
The thing linking those five teams? Turmoil and change. The 49ers were trying to shift between two Hall of Fame quarterbacks and move on from the legacy of Bill Walsh. The Ravens had to play their first full season without Ray Lewis captaining the defense. The New Orleans Saints suffered through a head-coaching suspension and Bountygate. The Indianapolis Colts had to play their first season without Peyton Manning. The New England Patriots only received a quarter out of Tom Brady before he tore his ACL.
You could definitely see the 2014 49ers falling into that group. They missed NaVorro Bowman for the entire season and had to play out the entire year under the specter of a head-coaching change. They had players suspended and players running afoul of the law. It was a disastrous annus horribilis, providing distraction after distraction. Like those other five teams which bounced back, the 49ers do have a lot of talent on their roster remaining, and with 2015 bound to be less chaotic than 2014, it could easily be a case where they return to the playoffs immediately.
On the other hand, not all teams are so lucky. Twice, the 49ers haven’t been able to shake off a poor season, with the career-ending injury of Steve Young in 1999 triggering a multiple-year playoff drought most recently. This decade alone, we’ve seen the Philadelphia Eagles, San Diego Chargers, New York Giants, Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos all turn multiple-year playoff streaks into multiple-year playoff droughts. Windows open and shut fast in the NFL, and if you don’t turn multiple playoff appearances into Super Bowl championships quickly, you may run out of chances.
The Jim Harbaugh era can be remembered in one of two ways. It could be the era that brought the 49ers back to respectability, with another coach bringing them over the top—think Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden in Tampa Bay. Or, it could be an era of what might have been, like Andy Reid in Philadelphia.
Only time will tell where Harbaugh’s reign will fit in the history of the 49ers.
Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers. Follow him @BryKno on twitter.
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