San Francisco 49ers: How Jim Harbaugh Has Turned Team into Contenders

After eight straight seasons without a winning record, Jim Harbaugh turned the San Francisco 49ers into legitimate Super Bowl contenders in just his first season as the head coach. The 49ers currently have a 12-3 record and locked up the division during Week 13 of the season.

How on earth did Harbaugh do it?

It's the question that everyone is asking since no one expected the 49ers to burst on to the scene like they did in 2011. Everyone was counting them out because of the NFL lockout and because the infamous Alex Smith was going to be the starting quarterback.

However, there are a multitude of reasons to why the 49ers are so successful this year outside of solely playing in the NFC West.

Here's six ways that Jim Harbaugh has molded the 49ers from playoff contenders into Super Bowl contenders in just one season.

Utilizes the Strengths of His Players to Perfection

It sounds simple, but Harbaugh has put all of his players in the best position for them to succeed. He has studied the strengths of his players and learned their weaknesses.

For example, he knows that Ted Ginn Jr. does not have the best hands in the NFL at the wide receiver position. However, he realizes that Ginn does have game-breaking speed and has found a way to incorporate him into the offensive game plan. The fly sweep play where Ginn motions towards the ball and gets a running start before Smith hands it off has gotten him 68 yards rushing on eight carries (8.5 yard average).

He knows that Aldon Smith does not excel in pass coverage, but he is one of the best pass-rushers in the NFL. When Smith plays in the nickle packages on defense, you'll rarely see him in there do to anything but get after the quarterback.

Frank Gore, as good of a running back he is, does not have the best hands on the team. He's also not the fastest running back in the league, so he's not the prototypical back to use during the screen plays. However, Kendall Hunter excels in pass-catching and has the shiftiness needed to turn the screen play into a big gain. Hence the reason why Hunter has received the majority of the running back screens this season.

These are just a few of the ways that Harbaugh utilizes his players to perfection in order to maximize their efficiency. It's every coach's job in the NFL to figure out how to maximize their player's output. Harbaugh is just better than others at doing so.

Master of Deception

Harbaugh has used the element of surprise to perfection this year. He likes to hold his cards close to his chest and not let anyone know what the 49ers are planning to do in the upcoming games.

It's why he hardly gives a straight answer to the media. But when he does, you should take his answer with a grain of salt.

This strategy was exemplified when the 49ers beat the New York Giants during Week 10. Justin Tuck of the New York Giants called out Alex Smith and said that he was nothing more than a game manager. He tipped the Giants' hand, and the 49ers knew for certain that the Giants were going to stack the box and force Smith to beat them.

Challenge accepted.

Alex Smith and the 49ers came out and threw the ball 30 times for 242 yards against a Giants defense that wasn't expecting the pass. It was one of Smith's best games as a 49er, and it came after one of the best defensive ends in the NFL challenged him.

The art of deception was a reoccurring theme for the 49ers this year. When the 49ers played the Detroit Lions, many thought that they wouldn't be able to run on Ndamukong Suh and the Lions' run defense. However, the 49ers used Suh's aggressiveness against him and let him over-peruse on two separate occasions, allowing Frank Gore to gash them for big gains. 

Harbaugh's tactical awareness is unprecedented, and he's quickly establishing himself as one of the best head coaches in the game today. 

Brought in Vic Fangio to Take Defense to Another Level

The 49ers defense has been good for the past few years. They were widely considered a top-10 defense who excelled in stopping the run. They always gave up a ton of yards, but they were able to buckle down in the red zone and hold opponent to three points the majority of the time. They were reminiscent of the 49ers defense this season, but nowhere close to being as effective.

The previous defensive coordinator, Greg Manusky, did a good job, but he was never able to get the defense to the elite level that it was capable of.

Jim Harbaugh then brought Vic Fangio with him from Stanford to be the defensive coordinator. He was a defensive coordinator for the Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans from 1999-2005 and spent some time learning the ways of the Baltimore Ravens defense from 2006-2010 as an assistant coach.

During his time with the 49ers, he has transformed this defense into the best in the NFL. Not only that, he turned them into the best rush defense in NFL history. It wasn't until Week 16 that a running back rushed for a touchdown against the 49ers. If it wasn't for a blocked punt and the ball ending up on the 5-yard line, Marshawn Lynch would've unlikely gotten that touchdown. In fact, video replay showed that Lynch might not have carried the ball inside the pylon and it shouldn't have been a touchdown anyways.

His defense has allowed a league-low 13.5 points per game. His defense has the second-most interceptions (21) and the most forced fumbles (30).

What's essential to the defense's success is the pressure they are able to supply on the quarterback without blitzing. They can rush four and still manage to collapse the pocket, while other teams have to disguise their blitzes in order to pressure the quarterback. It's truly one of the biggest reasons why the defense has been so successful.

Harbaugh brought in Fangio, and he has turned this defense into something truly special.

Put All of the Pieces of the Puzzle Together

If you have paid attention to the 49ers for the past few years, you would know that there has always been talent on this roster. This team had high expectations the last few years, but they were never able to live up to the hype for one reason or another.

Whether it was the coaching, the pressure or the lack of a legitimate quarterback, the 49ers underachieved during Mike Nolan and Mike Singletary's tenures as head coach.

The offense had playmakers at the skill positions like Frank Gore, Michael Crabtree and Vernon Davis. The defense had superstars like Patrick Willis and Justin Smith. Heck, they even had the best punter in the game: Andy Lee.

When Harbaugh became the coach of the 49ers, it couldn't have been a better situation for him. Yes, the lockout did make things difficult, but it certainly looks like it didn't hinder him from making this team reach their full potential.

The pieces of the puzzle were already on the table. All Harbaugh had to do was put them together.

Established a Relationship with Alex Smith

There aren't too many players who have traveled a tougher road to success in the NFL than Alex Smith.

He was the first-overall pick in 2005 and was thrown to the wolves his rookie year when asked to be the starting quarterback for the worst offense in the NFL. He's had a lackluster supporting cast on offense up until the the past couple of years. He's had a different offensive coordinator every year he's been in the NFL.

Worst off all, he's had two defensive-minded head coaches who neglected to nurture him during his maturation process of becoming a quarterback in the NFL. Instead of providing him with the tools and teachers necessary to be successful, they continually threw him under the bus and questioned his toughness.

Then, in steps Jim Harbaugh, the caring coach and mentor that Smith has been dying for since he entered the league.

What Harbaugh did to earn Smith's trust was show confidence in him. It was the one thing that Smith never had from his coaches but needed so desperately in order to succeed.

One of Harbaugh's first orders of business when he accepted the job was seeking out Smith and confessing his desire to have Smith back as the 49ers' quarterback this season. He believed in Smith, and that confidence has gone a long way this season.

Smith has had the best season of his career. He has career highs in completion percentage (61 percent), passing yards (2,931) and yards per completion (7.06), and he had a career low in interceptions (five). Harbaugh knows Smith's strengths and limitations. He only asks of Smith what he knows he's capable of and can be successful at.

If you haven't noticed it before, part of Harbaugh's pregame ritual with Smith consists of him pounding on his shoulder pads in order to pump him up. If you look closely enough, you'll notice a genuine smile on Smith's face that hasn't really been seen before.

The relationship between Smith and Harbaugh is one of the best stories in the NFL that no one is talking about.

Took a Different Approach to Coaching

Like I mentioned before in this article, Nolan and Singletary severely mishandled the talent on this roster during their times as head coach for the 49ers. However, I'm going to focus on Singletary and where he went wrong as a head coach in the NFL.

Singletary was more of a preacher than a teacher. He was more of a drill sergeant than a head coach. Instead of coaching, he would rant. Rather than showing what he wanted from his players, he expected it. He was more of a dictator than a coach, and he simply had no business holding that much power on an NFL team.

He did do wonders in turning Vernon Davis into a leader rather than a diva. His presence also unmistakeably had a huge impact on Patrick Willis' maturation into the best middle linebacker in the NFL. But he lost his locker room towards the end of the 2010 season, and it was time to a change.

The change that Trent Baalke and Jed York desired was for more of a high-profile head coach who had proven that he was capable of being the man in charge. They made the right choice, because Harbaugh was literally the perfect choice for the position.

Harbaugh's "one-with-the-players mentality" is unparallelled in the NFL. He treats his players like one of his peers, rather than Singletary's authoritative approach. He's constantly seen on the field throwing passes to the receivers. You can see him on the field before games catching balls from Alex Smith during warm-ups.

He believes in his players, and his players believe in him as well. The mutual respect the two parties have for each other is noticeable during Harbaugh's post-game locker room speech after they rallied back and beat the Detroit Lions in Week 6.

It may not seem like it, but Harbaugh's philosophy of coaching has gone a long way in turning this franchise around.