San Francisco 49ers: Jim Harbaugh Not to Blame for This Mess

As most of you have probably heard, the possibility that Jim Harbaugh won’t be a 49er next season is approaching a 100 percent certainty.

It’s a rumor that’s been floating around for a while now, and what started out as a whisper early in the season mushroomed into a cacophonous snarl after the 49ers were embarrassed by the Raiders and completely humiliated by the Seahawks the week before.

Sunday felt like something that we purge from our DVRs at least once a year: The hollow, ringing sneer of the 12th man drowning out the bright spots of red and gold sprinkled into the dark, spiraling vortex of blue. Colin Kaepernick fleeing from his pursuers barely a second after the snap, desperately looking for a seam and reluctant to throw the ball against a secondary that has tormented him throughout his career.

And injuries. Lots of injuries. As 49er after 49er limped off the field, Harbaugh could only close his eyes and shake his head, an image 49ers fans aren’t used to after years of seeing him screaming and pirouetting around on the sidelines, eyes bulging out of their sockets and foam frothing from his mouth. 

Even after Ed Hochuli and his crew blew a critical call that proved to be the difference in the game, Harbaugh didn’t clench his fists, he didn’t tug off his headphones, he just stared blankly ahead in disbelief, the Fox slow-motion camera adding on an extra six seconds of misery.

There are a couple of things people need to know about Jim Harbaugh:

He’s petulant.

He’s overbearing.

He’s an ass.

He’s also a pretty damn good football coach.

The best one the 49ers have had in the last quarter century, in fact, because while George Seifert did win two Super Bowls, he coached the team while they were owned by Eddie DeBartolo, not John York and his spawn.

Harbaugh’s rookie year with the 49ers was met with high expectations, and all he did was steer the team to a 13-3 record and get them to within two plays of the Super Bowl. Neither of those plays had to be a touchdown or even a field goal, Kyle Williams just had to be somewhere else.

The next year, the 49ers found some guy named Colin Kaepernick hiding on their roster, and they came four yards shy of winning their sixth world championship. Making Kaepernick the starter after just one game was a questionable move, but it was the right one, because as much as Harbaugh loved Alex Smith, Kaepernick gave the Niners the best chance to win.

Last year, the Niners were favorites to win the NFC again, but a major injury to Michael Crabtree during training camp and some huge missed calls during the regular season forced their playoff road to go through Seattle, where they eventually lost after another boneheaded mistake by their quarterback.

Ryan Kang/Associated Press

This season, the 49ers are 7-7. They should be 9-5, but injuries and off-field issues that spilled over from last year have them sitting on their futons when the playoffs start in January. They technically had a shot with a win in Seattle depending on how the rest of the NFC shook out, but considering their depleted roster and how terrible the offense has been, it’s hard to imagine them making any kind of run that wouldn’t end with Colin Kaepernick throwing a couple more passes to his favorite receiver, Richard Sherman.

The natural inclination for a fan in this situation is to assign blame. It’s something I do all the time. I donated my Xbox One to charity after the 49ers lanced Kyle Williams. Here I am celebrating with thousands of Giants fans on the streets after news got out of Mike Singletary's firing.  

But sometimes there isn’t always one person you can throw under the bus. Niners fans should know this well during the dark years of Erickson and Nolan and McCloughan. The team stunk in every facet of the game. A couple of times they even forgot how to throw a football in a forward motion.

And yet, with all of this year’s current mishaps, the media keeps assuring us of something: Jim Harbaugh will be out the door when it’s all over.

The question is: Why would 49ers fans want that to happen? Harbaugh is not the problem, as some people in the organization would like us to believe.

Jed York’s “apology” on Twitter seemed to be his way of saying “Don’t worry, we’re going to do something about this, Jim will be somewhere else very soon.”

That’s right, likely making another team a much better one.

We heard earlier this season that Harbaugh was going to be fired no matter how far the 49ers went, so it isn’t surprising that the latest buzz from ESPN's Adam Schefter has him getting traded to the Raiders, likely for a couple of useless draft picks.

Imagine yourself in Harbaugh’s position. How would you deal with this, especially with all the garbage you had to put up with this year?

Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

It’s not his fault that Navorro Bowman will miss the entire season after tearing up his ACL in the playoffs. It’s not his fault that the 49ers’ injuries (which include Patrick Willis, Ian Williams, Glenn Dorsey, Frank Gore, Carlos Hyde, Chris Borland, Anthony Davis and Jimmy Ward) are piling up high enough to block some lofty views of the SF skyline. 

It’s not his fault that Colin Kaepernick pissed away two wins with three second-half interceptions in one game and fumbling away the ball in the end zone in another. It’s not his fault that Aldon Smith was suspended nine games for acting like a drunken red ass, again. It’s not his fault that Vernon Davis sulked his way through the offseason hoping for a new contract and didn’t show up for minicamp (and still hasn’t showed up once this season).

The 49ers play in the most competitive division in the NFL. Two other teams are Super Bowl contenders, and the St. Louis Rams have looked impressive over the last month, beating a slew of playoff-caliber teams and throttling the Raiders despite being plagued with injuries throughout the year.

But apparently, none of this matters to Trent Baalke and Jed York, who seemingly believe that sending out cryptic messages signaling Harbaugh's departure will solve all of the 49ers' problems.

Like Jed knows a whole lot about football. 49ers fans spent the better part of the last decade booing the Yorks as they ran one of the most successful sports franchises into the ground. They invested over a billion dollars to build a new stadium more than 40 miles away from the city the team plays for and are just now starting to realize that it’s not much of an improvement from the trailer park the 49ers inhabited for 50 years.

It took them 10 years to find a head coach that could actually do the job, and after three straight NFC Championship Game appearances and a Super Bowl, one bad season filled with injuries and holdouts and domestic abuse allegations is suddenly enough to hit the reset button.       

It’s one of life’s harshest truths: It doesn’t matter how good you are at your job if your boss hates you.

Here’s something else everyone should know: It’s not personality that makes a coach popular with the fans.

It’s winning.

The 49ers could have 50 nice guys coached by an avuncular (that is a word, right?) version of Bill Belichick, and I’d still like them less if they couldn’t win as many games. I ripped Mike Singletary for nearly his entire tenure with the Niners, and none of that had anything to do with him being a whiny jackass.

It had to do with him being a clueless dope who sucked at his job.

There are a lot of things not to like about Jim Harbaugh. His singing, his on-field temper tantrums, the way he dresses like a cartoon character. But his win-loss record isn’t one of them.

It’s why a lot of teams will be lining up for his services if the 49ers are stupid enough to let him go.

Maybe it’s time to start preparing.

Because apparently, the front office can’t wait to get back to the 10 years of peace, love and crappy football the 49ers had before Harbaugh was hired.