Jeff Garcia played 12 NFL seasons, including five in San Francisco, where he went 35-36 in 71 starts and made three postseason appearances from 2000-2002. And now, like everyone except 49ers president Jed York, general manager Trent Baalke and new coach Jim Tomsula, Garcia has no idea what the plan is for 2015 and beyond.
“It’s unfortunate because you look at a team that was highly competitive, that was on the cusp, that went to a Super Bowl, that was a play away from winning a Super Bowl, that was a play away from going to another Super Bowl. And now, where are they going to be?” Garcia asked during an interview with Dante Geoffrey of the Times-Standard.com.
The general feeling: Bringing up the rear in the NFC West, though York will tell you that parting ways with Jim Harbaugh, who was 13-3, 11-4-1, 12-4 and 8-8 in his four seasons, is part of the solution for the franchise.
“We're trying to win a Super Bowl," York said last month. "We haven't been able to do that," York said. "And I think what we're trying to do is build a team that focuses on our core strengths. I think we got away from that a little bit. I think we tried to do too much and be something that we weren't."
Good luck finding fans and media who believe that -- and that includes Garcia, who sees similarities between Harbaugh and Steve Mariucci, who was fired by the 49ers after the 2002 season.
“Mariucci went through a situation where he had an older football team, had to turn over a lot of players," Garcia said. "All of a sudden we were a playoff team again. Went to back-to-back playoff years. Get into the second round, lose to eventual Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay, and then they fire him. There were a lot of questions as to why.”
Garcia believes that, in Harbaugh's case, it had less to do with on-field performance than personal issues between the front office and the coach.
“Trent Baalke and Jed York together, teaming up against Harbaugh. At my time it was Mariucci against (then general manager) Terry Donahue and Dr. (John) York [Jed’s father]," Garcia explained. "For whatever reason they let Steve go, they brought in Dennis Erickson ... and two years later they’re getting rid of Dennis and going on to a number of different head coaches, a number of different changes. None of those worked out until Harbaugh was brought into the program.”
Failing to learn from history, etc., brings us to something York said in December, when he first spoke about the decision to move on from Harbaugh, and explained that the team's off-field issues (including 10 arrests over 32 months) played a part.
"And that's where you get to the teacher (-type coach) to make sure that you find a way to keep those guys instead of going to the other side, keeping them on the side of the road that fits with our core values," he said at the time.
And what happens if the new guy doesn't win a Super Bowl in the first few years?
"Then we're going to have figure out if that's the right fit," York said.
Good news, though: Tomsula said at last month's owner's meetings that quarterback Colin Kaepernick "had his best year" in 2014. And if you believe that, 49ers, fans, you should go ahead and make those Super Bowl reservations.
Back on Earth, Garcia knows where the blame lies.
“As a fan you have to really look at the management of the organization and the decisions that they’ve made for that team,” he said. “Sometimes what I see ... is you have a lot of personnel that are in positions of power that don’t have real football backgrounds. I’m not saying that’s Trent Baalke, but I’d like to see what his background is, and what gives him the true power to make those sort of decisions. ... We know that Jed York never played football.”
