It was just 14 months ago that the San Francisco 49ers were riding high. They had just come off a 2013 campaign that saw them earn a third consecutive NFC Championship game appearance. They were about to break in California's first brand-new NFL stadium in nearly a half century.
Rumors of a rift between then head coach Jim Harbaugh and the front office were vehemently denied by the powers to be in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, the team looked to be in the midst of a heated rivalry with the defending champion Seattle Seahawks.
At that time, 49ers CEO Jed York was seen as one of the hottest executives in the sports world. Not only did he find a way to cut through all the political red tape to build a stadium in the heart of Silicon Valley, he had helped assemble one of the best coaching staffs in football and an elite-level front office.
What has transpired since is one of the most dramatic declines in the recent history of professional sports.
With Harbaugh now leading the Michigan Wolverines back into the national conversation around the world of college football, former defensive line coach Jim Tomsula is at the helm in San Francisco.
Gone are the two coordinators that helped San Francisco return to its glory days after so many down seasons in the decade prior to Harbaugh's arrival from Palo Alto.
Gone is an elite-level defense that boasted two Hall of Fame-caliber players and another two or three Pro Bowl performers. Gone is the franchise's all-time leading rusher. Gone are two offensive linemen that the team had picked up in the first round of the draft five years earlier to help rebuild the line.
Following San Francisco's embarrassing 27-6 loss to the St. Louis Rams on Sunday, it sits at 2-6 and in last place in the NFC West. It has been outscored 47-9 over the past two games and by an average of nearly two touchdowns per outing this year.
San Francisco's offense ranks dead last in the NFL in points. All the while, its once vaunted defense ranks in the bottom third of the league in points allowed.
The struggles on the field are real. A once promising quarterback that led San Francisco to the Super Bowl in his first half season as a starter, Colin Kaepernick may be nearing the end of his tenure by the bay.
That once dominating offense line, previously led by Mike Iupati and Anthony Davis, has allowed 28 sacks in seven games.
Off the field, questions continue to exist regarding Levi's Stadium and whether it was a hastily-built venue by an organization that has proven to be inept in nearly every other category over the past two years. This is magnified by a ridiculously high number of season tickets available on the secondary market.
Who Is To Blame?
“After conducting a thorough coaching search, and meeting with a number of outstanding candidates, Jim Tomsula clearly is the right man to lead this team. Jim is a great teacher and a tremendous mentor who conducts himself with great class and integrity.”
That's a direct quote from York during Tomsula's introductory press conference back in January. It was a continuation of a theme set forth by San Francisco since it "mutually parted ways" with Harbaugh following the team's 8-8 2014 campaign.
After months of off-field issues in San Francisco leading up to, and during the 2014 season, the premise here was that Tomsula would lead the organization with class. No longer would we see 49ers players in police blurbs on a never-ending loop.
To use a term from former NFL receiver Cris Carter, Harbaugh had quickly gone from the toast of the organization to its fall guy.
There remains some ambiguity regarding how the dynamic worked regarding Harbaugh's relationship with the front office. Talking to people within the organization, higher ups if you will, the primary issue was between the current Michigan head coach and San Francisco's CEO.
General manager Trent Baalke had the difficult task of playing middle man — ultimately siding with his employer. That has looped Baalke into the conversation with York throughout the past several months. Fair or not, the general manager made his bed, and now has to pay the piper.
For his part, Baalke might be one of the most overrated general managers in the NFL. When he took over the primary player personnel role in San Francisco, Baalke did a tremendous job assembling talent via both free agency and the draft.
But once the 49ers showed themselves to be competitive, Baalke made a tactical mistake. Going for higher-upside players with a history of injuries at the college level, San Francisco's drafts have been met with failure more often than not.
From former South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore to current defensive lineman Tank Carradine, these prospects never (or haven't) panned out.
More than that, at least one entire draft was completely lost. Not a single member of the 49ers' 2012 draft class is with the team this season. It started with wide receiver A.J. Jenkins in the first round and culminated in the selection of Cam Johnson in the seventh round.
To this day, Jenkins remains the only first-round wide receiver in NFL history not to catch a regular season pass with his original team.
While six players from San Francisco's 2013 class remain with the team, only Eric Reid and Quinton Dial are paying dividends right now.
You can mask misses in the draft when your veterans are playing at a high level, but at the end of the day it will catch up with you.
Following the departure of 12 starters from last year's roster, these bad picks have caught up with the last place 49ers in grand fashion.
York didn't choose Baalke over Harbaugh. Despite the media-driven narrative that wants to tell you this was the case, the CEO just couldn't work with the enigmatic Harbaugh. We may never know exactly what happened there, but both sides deserve some of the blame.
Heck, Baalke himself failed in acting the part of a buffer between the two strong personalities. He's also failed miserably in terms of adding upper-echelon young talent to the mix.
What we do know is that San Francisco replaced one of the most successful head coaches in franchise history with a well-liked former position coach that seems to be in over his head.
What we do know is that the current coaching staff has yet to do anything to acquire confidence from frustrated players and an unhappy fan base.
What we do know is that York himself — handed the team with a silver spoon from his mother and father — is a complete antithesis of his uncle, the great Edward J. DeBartolo, Jr.
By letting his ego get in the way, the younger York ruined a darn good thing in Santa Clara.
Interestingly, this comes just a couple decades after Eddie D himself had major personality clashes with the late-great Bill Walsh — clashes that the two overcame to keep that version of the 49ers among the league's elite franchises.
What we do know is that San Francisco is now a true laughingstock around the National Football League. A dramatic regression at quarterback, no real idea of what's happening from the coaching staff, and a sense of everything collapsing from within.
It's a house of cards that was set afire because of ego and ineptitude from the current front office, York and Baalke included.
What To Do?
At 2-6 on the season, there's no reasonable expectation that things are going to improve on the field. And based on what we have seen from the key decision makers in Santa Clara, there can't be much confidence that they will be able to right the ship.
Will York admit his mistake and let Tomsula go after just one season? Considering his rather inflated opinion of himself, that seems highly unlikely.
Instead, the powers to be will be looking for yet another fall guy. That's likely going to come in the form of a quarterback in Colin Kaepernick that was put in a no-win situation to start the year.
With the remainder of his guarantees only coming in the form of an injury caveat, San Francisco's brass will likely find it reason enough to bench him in order to move on from the embattled signal caller without any financial commitment beyond the 2015 season.
That will set into motion a full-scale rebuild for a team that's set to host Super Bowl 50 in just a few short months — a game it had every reasonable expectation of playing in just 14 months ago.
Mistakes will continue to be made without the powers to be looking at themselves in the mirror. York will continue to feed himself from that silver spoon uncle Eddie and his parents provided him so many years ago.
And in the end, San Francisco will find itself bogged down by the very same idiocy that we have seen from the organization over the past several months — idiocy that even the most optimistic of writers can see from a mile away.
They are all to blame. Unfortunately, they lack the ability to place blame on themselves. That starts with York himself, continues with Baalke and somehow finds its way to the sidelines with the coaching staff.
Until this changes, San Francisco will be the punching bag of the NFC West — a dramatic decline for one of the most historical franchises in the history of the NFL.
Also on Forbes:
