San Francisco 49ers: Why Haven't They Hired an Offensive Coordinator, Yet?

Does anyone want to be the San Francisco 49ers's offensive coordinator?  Because the job’s still wide-open, as it has been since Greg Roman joined Rex Ryan on the Buffalo Bills on January 12.  That’s two weeks ago, and counting, and the team looks no closer to having someone in place than it was when it “mutually agreed” to fire Jim Harbaugh on the last day of the season.

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The latest fish to get away is former Cleveland Browns head coach and current Indianapolis Colts special assistant Rob Chudzinski, who has opted to stay in Indianapolis with a promotion to associate head coach, according to Mike Wells of ESPN.com.  It was widely rumored that Chudzinski was, at this point, San Francisco’s top choice for coordinator, according to Matt Maiocco and others.  Instead, the search will continue.

The search will continue, as it did when Lane Kiffin announced he was staying in Alabama, according to The Associated Press (via The Daily Progress).

The search will continue, as it did when they failed to convince Adam Gase to join the team as coordinator, as reported by Matt Maiocco.

The search will continue, as it did when Marc Trestman opted to go to Baltimore, despite Chris Cwik’s report that the 49ers were interested in his services.

Kyle Shanahan, Dirk Koetter and Scott Linehan were also all considered candidates at some point in the process, and all have opted to become offensive coordinators for other teams around the league, and so, the search will continue.

What is taking the 49ers so long?  It is possible they had their hearts and minds set on someone like Chudzinski or Kiffin, who were simply not available to interview until late in the process. 

This would be a high-risk, high-reward type of strategy; Chudzinski’s background probably made him the most enticing candidate for a Colin Kaepernick-led offense, but waiting for him saw a bunch of other candidates fall by the wayside.

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It’s unlikely that the candidate they were waiting for is on either the Seattle Seahawks or New England Patriots.  If that had been so, there would have likely been a handshake deal in place already, like the Atlanta Falcons have with Seattle’s defensive coordinator, Dan Quinn. 

While it’s still possible the 49ers will go after someone from the Super Bowl teams—perhaps Patriots tight ends coach Brian Daboll, who has previous offensive coordinator experience in Kansas City, Cleveland and Miami—it seems unlikely they were specifically holding out for them.

If that was the strategy, it has failed, and it has the 49ers scurrying for a backup plan among a severely depleted group of candidates.

Perhaps, however, that wasn’t the strategy.  Perhaps the strategy has been clear all along.  The 49ers fired Jim Harbaugh and promoted from within, tabbing Jim Tomsula as the head coach.  They let Vic Fangio leave and promoted from within, naming Eric Mangini as their defensive coordinator.  Perhaps that’s the same plan for the offensive coordinator.

The 49ers have three coaches already on staff with offensive coordinator experience.  One is Chris Foerster, who was brought in to coach the offensive line.  Another is Tony Sparano, who has come in to coach the tight ends.

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The third is Geep Chryst.  Chryst has been the 49ers’ quarterback coach since 2011 and has remained with the team through the Tomsula transition.  However, reports are that he won’t remain as the quarterbacks coach—reports that date back as far as Tomsula’s original hiring date, with CSNBayArea.com's Matt Maiocco’s report on January 15.

Has Chryst been the name all along?  If the 49ers do end up with Chryst, I imagine that will be the spin on it, just as it was with Tomsula.  It even allows some of the pieces to fit together a little better—why else would the 49ers be hiring offensive assistants without letting the coordinator pick them?  It would make more sense if Chryst was the coordinator-in-waiting, assembling a staff.

Chryst is not exactly the most amazing name out there; his only coordinator experience was with the San Diego Chargers at the beginning of the Ryan Leaf era.  However, he’s not the worst name in the world, and at least it would indicate some sort of plan being in place.

At the same time, however, if Chryst was predetermined to be the offensive coordinator, why hasn’t it been leaked yet?  While Mangini has not been officially named the defensive coordinator, sources leaked the news to ESPN last week.  Why would the Mangini news break and the Chryst news not?  There isn’t an obvious, logical reason why that would happen—it’s not impossible, but it seems unlikely.

That leads us to the third possibility why this is taking so long—the 49ers can’t convince anyone to join the team.  They see a head coach with no coordinator experience, an ownership group that just fired the fifth-most successful head coach in NFL history, according to Pro-Football-Reference.com, in terms of winning percentage and an owner who has specifically said that a Super Bowl is the only successful outcome for the team and have decided to stay far, far away.

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This is a tempting narrative if you’re very, very down on the Jim Harbaugh firing, but it doesn’t entirely hold up.  The 49ers have brought in Foerster, Eric Wolford, Tony Sparano, Thomas McGaughey, Eric Mangini and Jason Tarver from outside the organization.  Some of them had connections with Tomsula in the past but not all of them.  The 49ers are not incapable of attracting coaching hires.

It’s possible, of course, that some candidates are being scared off by the front-office chaos.  Perry Fewell was reportedly offered the 49ers’ secondary coaching job, but he turned it down to go to Washington instead, according to Mark Maske of The Washington Post. 

It’s also not a great sign that Chudzinski re-signed with the Colts rather than letting his contract expire and at least interviewing with San Francisco.  However, the 49ers are not exactly a talent-repelling void; there are only 32 offensive coordinator positions out there, and even if the 49ers had the worst situation in the league, it would be an in-demand position.

With the front office being as opaque as possible throughout this process, we may never know what the true story is.  What we know is this: The 49ers are rapidly running out of candidates that would be more inspiring than simply keeping Greg Roman would have been.

The only candidate that has been rumored out there who would count as a splash any more would be Mike Shanahan.  I wrote a big piece a week ago on why Shanahan wouldn’t work for the 49ers, but at this point, he’s the best candidate out there for the job.  It would at least be a bold move in tune with Jed York’s Super Bowl-bound philosophy.

Other than that, or a surprise candidate like Mike Holmgren, any other candidate would complete the trifecta of disappointing hires.  Jim Tomsula is a disappointing replacement for Jim Harbaugh, Eric Mangini is a disappointing replacement for Vic Fangio and Geep Chryst would be a disappointing replacement for Greg Roman.

Now, Super Bowls are not won in the media.  Simply because a hiring doesn’t inspire admiration around the league doesn’t mean it’s bad.  Plenty of coaches have come in with great fanfare and flopped, and plenty have come in quietly and had great success.  It’s possible that, in a year’s time, Jed York and Trent Baalke will look like geniuses for putting together a staff which returns the 49ers to the playoffs.

On the other hand, sometimes the masses are right.  Sometimes, if moves are widely considered to be poor, they’re actually poor—it’s not always a case of the ownership knowing something we don’t.  Sometimes, looking like you don’t have a plan actually means you don’t have a plan.

We won’t know until games are played whether or not the 49ers’ front office has made the right moves this offseason.  Until then, all we can do is watch and try to figure out what could possibly be the plan for this franchise moving forward.

Bryan Knowles is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers.  Follow him @BryKno on Twitter.