Time for San Francisco 49ers to Fire Jim Tomsula After Big Loss to Seahawks

SEATTLE — What are the San Francisco 49ers waiting for?

They should have fired head coach Jim Tomsula by now. Should have fired him as he walked off the field following the Niners’ 29-13 loss to the Seattle Seahawks Sunday afternoon.

General manager Trent Baalke should have met Tomsula at the 50-yard line, stripped him of his 49ers windbreaker and told him to catch a Greyhound back to the Bay Area.

Really, what more do the Niners need to see from his guy?

After 10 games, Tomsula has committed enough football sins to send him to football purgatory for 2,000 years. Let’s start with the sins he committed Sunday against the Seahawks.

Football Sin No. 1: Giving up a franchise record 209 rushing yards to undrafted rookie Thomas Rawls, who was the Seahawks’ third-string running back when the season began.

John Froschauer/Associated Press

Since 2007—back when the Niners hired Tomsula to be their defensive line coach—he has been in charge of San Francisco’s front seven. The success of that unit was a big reason the Niners gave Tomsula the head coaching job in the first place.

Today, Tomsula’s front seven made Seattle’s bad offensive line look elite. Rawls often ran three or four yards past the line of scrimmage before he got touched.

“We didn’t fit the run well; we didn’t tackle well,” Tomsula said at his postgame press conference.

“Do you know why you didn’t tackle well?” A reporter asked.

“I have to look at it,” Tomsula answered. Translation: No, I don’t know why the defense didn’t tackle well.

He continued. “We were talking about wrapping up and coming down. You can’t go into a tackle worried about missing a tackle. You’ve got to just go tackle.”

Translation: I told my players they should tackle well, but they didn’t listen. So now I’m going to tell you, the media, how to tackle, even though you aren’t football players.

Football Sin No. 2: Punting twice when he was down 16 points in the fourth quarter.

Rick Scuteri/Associated Press

Head coaches typically stop punting when they’re down big in the fourth quarter. Not Tomsula. He keeps punting so he can keep the score somewhat respectable, as opposed to going for the win.

“We had to get a stop,” Tomsula said after the game. “We were playing for two touchdowns and two two-point [conversions]. So we figured right there, let’s try to get the field position and get a stop. Score, get two points and then come back with an onside kick.”

In other words, Tomsula trusted his defense to shut down the Seahawks offense at the end of the game even though Seattle’s running back was averaging seven yards per carry.

Smart.

Football Sin No. 3: Coming out flat against a division rival after a bye week.

Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

The Niners actually outscored the Seahawks 13-9 after the six-minute mark in the second-quarter. Unfortunately, the game didn’t start then. It started at the start.

The offense went three-and-out on its first, second and fourth drives of the game, and it didn’t get out of their own territory until 48 seconds before halftime.

Meanwhile, the defense gave up three straight touchdown drives to start the game.

“Your team looked lifeless in the first half,” a reporter told Tomsula after the game.

“I didn’t think the whole team looked lifeless,” Tomsula argued. “Offensively, I thought [we were] going at it there. Trying to have a consistent run-pass deal—came into the game that way. To me, you’re not afraid to punt. You’ve got to be able at the beginning of the game to run the ball and get your play-action pass going. But defensively, we’ve got to stop the drive and work on field position.”

In other words, it’s OK for the offense to come out flat in the first half.

No, Jim. It’s not OK. Football Sin No. 3 is your biggest sin of all.

You’re supposed to get both your offense and defense ready to play a full game—that’s the bare minimum we expect from a head coach. Your teams haven’t been ready to play a single road game this season.

Mike Singletary’s teams always played hard from the opening whistle, and he was one of the worst head coaches in NFL history. Although, he wasn’t worse than Tomsula.

After Tomsula finished his press conference, reporters walked to the locker room. Outside linebacker Ahmad Brooks was dressing at his locker.

Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

“What’s the difference between the energy level at home versus on the road?” someone asked Brooks.

“When we play in Seattle, there’s something about playing here,” Brooks said. “For me especially. The past couple of years, when we come here, it’s either November or December. It’s always dark, gloomy.”

In other words, guys will play hard for Tomsula as long as the weather is nice.

“Why did the team come out flat today?” I asked Brooks.

“I can’t speak for anybody else—I know that I did today,” he admitted. “Took me a while for me to get up and get going in this game. I don’t know why. We can’t do that if we want to be something special, if we want to improve what we’re doing. We’ve got to come out like our a-- is on fire. Seriously.”

Translation: I can’t explain why we don’t play hard for Tomsula—we just don’t.

Time for Tomsula to go.

All quotations obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. 

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