Speculation: Josh McDaniels to replace Jim Harbaugh as 49ers head coach?

PatsWickedPissah said:

Having called a "stupid" play or for that matter a stupid series would disqualify every OC in the league several times every year.

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I probably should have layed the sarcasm on a little thicker. I'm taking a shot at people who blame every bad series/play/pass on the oc. But I agree with you this league is full of putz o coordinators. Miami ran on third and 6 against new england in there house. Morons.

Deus Irae said:

You confuse "trade" for "spent". The trade was precisely what I said.

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What possible use is it to talk about what they "traded" instead of what they "spent" to determine whether the player was worth the deal? That's like a car dealer saying that since the Toyota is $30k and the Lexus $50k, the Lexus only costs $20k.

Rob0729 said:

I wouldn't want the San Fran job. He is stuck with Kaepernick. Frank Gore is on his last legs. The defense is declining a bit. The NFC West is a brutal division.

Personally, I think if McDaniels leaves, he goes to Atlanta.

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I think that would be his best fit he has a good pass offense there with a pretty good QB

Am I the only one who thinks Kaepernick can be fixable and turn into a very good QB?

He did show enough for me in his first 3 years, SB appearance, some playoff runs with some great comebacks on it. OK NFL defenses are now ready for the read option but he still has an arm.
Some are putting Matt Ryan over him, how come a guy who can't win a playoff match, plays at least 9 out of 16 games in a dome and is awful in open fields just like he's division mate Drew Brees is a much better option than Kaepernick?

I'll drive him to the airport.

varjao said:

Am I the only one who thinks Kaepernick can be fixable and turn into a very good QB?

He did show enough for me in his first 3 years, SB appearance, some playoff runs with some great comebacks on it. OK NFL defenses are now ready for the read option but he still has an arm.
Some are putting Matt Ryan over him, how come a guy who can't win a playoff match, plays at least 9 out of 16 games in a dome and is awful in open fields just like he's division mate Drew Brees is a much better option than Kaepernick?

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I dont see anything that Kaepernick does well apart from some of his read option trickery.

He misses wide open players, can't go through progressions, regularly has problems with snaps/delay of game penalties and also seems to lose composure under pressure which affects his decision making.

Fixable? No idea.. definitely not on the same level as Matt Ryan.

And speaking of Tebow, say what you want about him, but he was responsible for turning around that team. McDaniels was patient with him and didn't throw too much at him, but it was amazing to see how things turned around when he finally got his chance. The 2011 Broncos under John Fox were 1-4 before Tebow, hardly any better than McDaniels 3-9 start to the previous season before being fired. It was only after Tebow entered the line-up that the team finished 7-3 and made the play-offs.

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McDaniels, ironically, may be the only person ever to believe that Tebow could be a legit NFL QB, and may have been the only person in the NFL who could have made it happen.

Who would want that job? They want to fire guys that consistently win. From a job security standpoint, I would want a college gig or a spot on the Bengals coaching staff.

Rob0729 said:

Atlanta has a franchise QB to build around. San Fran doesn't. Right there it makes it a better job

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Not remotely, otherwise Atlanta wouldn't have sucked for two years running. SF is a few plays here or there away from being a playoff team out west even with a sucky QB (who may not be so sucky with better coaching), Atlanta is terrible across the board other than QB (where they are overrated) and WR (where the are injury prone).

It is far from the simple answer as you make it out to be.

Oswlek said:

Not remotely, otherwise Atlanta wouldn't have sucked for two years running. SF is a few plays here or there away from being a playoff team out west even with a sucky QB (who may not be so sucky with better coaching), Atlanta is terrible across the board other than QB (where they are overrated) and WR (where the are injury prone).

It is far from the simple answer as you make it out to be.

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It seems pretty simple to me. The 49ers are a declining team with no franchise QB, aging key players, and salary cap concerns. The 49ers position looks to be a bad position to have.

I never said that Atlanta was a great position, but it is more desirable than the 49ers' position because they are a few pieces away on offense, will have a top 10 draft pick, and will have $30-40 million of cap space. I also think Mike Smith was a big problem with this team because his poor game management literally cost them a game or two this year. They lost both the Lions and Browns games because poor clock management by Smith gave those two teams enough time to mount drives for game winning field goals. The Falcons are not as bad as their record.

Rob0729 said:

It seems pretty simple to me. The 49ers are a declining team with no franchise QB, aging key players, and salary cap concerns. The 49ers position looks to be a bad position to have.

I never said that Atlanta was a great position, but it is more desirable than the 49ers' position because they are a few pieces away on offense, will have a top 10 draft pick, and will have $30-40 million of cap space. I also think Mike Smith was a big problem with this team because his poor game management cost them a game or two this year.

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They also play in a division where a winning record isn't a necessity to win it.

Brady_to_Moss said:

If that happens who takes over as our OC or who do we want?

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Steve Belichick

After his stint in Denver, I would think that McDan's value has gone way, way down.

Rob0729 said:

Atlanta has a franchise QB to build around. San Fran doesn't. Right there it makes it a better job. It is a QB driven league. Add the fact that the Falcons can be a play off team next year with as bad as their division is and unless they win the division this year will have a high draft pick to start to rebuild.

Plus the 49ers are old at a lot of positions (Justin Smith, Anquan Boldin, Frank Gore) and could lose a lot of pieces to free agency in the next year or two. And they are either up to or over the 2015 cap right now (they are at $150 million in 2015 according to Over the Cap and the project cap number is supposed to be in the mid $140 millions). Atlanta's current cap spending for 2015 is $113.6 million giving them a lot of room to improve in free agency.

I don't think either job is all that attractive, but Atlanta looks to have a better future and management has a lot of Patriots ties.

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San Fran has a better core of players and has drafted Gore's replacement. Atlanta has a bad Oline, no TE, an aging Steven Jackson and Roddy White and a terrible defense. And good luck with Ryan as your franchise QB.

Armchair Quarterback said:

San Fran has a better core of players and has drafted Gore's replacement. Atlanta has a bad Oline, no TE, an aging Steven Jackson and Roddy White and a terrible defense. And good luck with Ryan as your franchise QB.

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The Falcons drafted Devonta Freeman who in patches, has flashed. They also have Antone Smith on IR who most definitely showed big play ability.

The Falcons problems are more on D than they are on O. It's predominately health and poor coaching this season that has plagued the Falcons. They need to upgrade a fair portion of their D. They're in a reasonable spot to trade back too.

Rob0729 said:

It seems pretty simple to me. The 49ers are a declining team with no franchise QB, aging key players, and salary cap concerns. The 49ers position looks to be a bad position to have.

I never said that Atlanta was a great position, but it is more desirable than the 49ers' position because they are a few pieces away on offense, will have a top 10 draft pick, and will have $30-40 million of cap space. I also think Mike Smith was a big problem with this team because his poor game management literally cost them a game or two this year. They lost both the Lions and Browns games because poor clock management by Smith gave those two teams enough time to mount drives for game winning field goals. The Falcons are not as bad as their record.

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Armchair Quarterback said:

San Fran has a better core of players and has drafted Gore's replacement. Atlanta has a bad Oline, no TE, an aging Steven Jackson and Roddy White and a terrible defense. And good luck with Ryan as your franchise QB.

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AcQB is right. San Fran is much closer to being a good team than Atlanta. The Falcons pretty much have nothing but an overrated QB and talented by injury prone WRs. If you were talking about a truly great QB, then I might be swayed, but Ryan isn't.

Armchair Quarterback said:

San Fran has a better core of players and has drafted Gore's replacement. Atlanta has a bad Oline, no TE, an aging Steven Jackson and Roddy White and a terrible defense. And good luck with Ryan as your franchise QB.

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I like Matt Ryan, he certainly is better than Kap right now but you are right, the Falcons are essentially Ryan and Julio Jones right now. The rest of that team is garbage

Armchair Quarterback said:

San Fran has a better core of players and has drafted Gore's replacement. Atlanta has a bad Oline, no TE, an aging Steven Jackson and Roddy White and a terrible defense. And good luck with Ryan as your franchise QB.

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Their core is older and expensive. Next year, the following players will be on the wrong side of 30:

Joe Staley
Vernon Davis
Justin Smith (he will be 36)
Patrick Willis (who we found out this season has had chronic toe problems that finally got bad enough he needed season ending surgery which could haunt him the rest of his career)
Anquan Boldin
Ahmad Brooks
Glenn Dorsey
Antoine Bethea

And just because they drafted a RB to replace Gore doesn't mean he is any good.

Since the 49ers are over the projected 2015 cap, the only way the can improve for the near future is through the draft and they will still have to cut players and/or renegotiate contracts to get under the cap to sign the rookies and get a buffer.

The 49ers are a year or two away from tearing things down and reloading. Maybe McDaniels could do it on the fly like Belichick does, but he is not Belichick and Kaepernick is not Brady which means they will likely have to go back to being bad before they get good. The 49ers' window is closing, not opening.

The Falcons' o-line problems is due to injuries. Early in the season they put their starting LT and C (and the primary back up C) on injured reserves. Their o-line issues are correctable when players get healthy.

The advantages of the Falcons is that they have the cap flexibility to improve fast and they look to be a much better team than their record hamstrung from their coach. If they had a competent coach, they would be at least 7-7 and leading the NFC South.

I when comes down to choosing a team I will always take the team with the better QB and the cap flexibility to get better.

meatface said:

I like Matt Ryan, he certainly is better than Kap right now but you are right, the Falcons are essentially Ryan and Julio Jones right now. The rest of that team is garbage

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You are overstating things. The Falcons actually has a few good players in their secondary and other individual players.

But if McDaniels go to the 49ers, he has about 1-2 years to win a Super Bowl before he has to blow up the roster and start over.

Rob0729 said:

they look to be a much better team than their record hamstrung from their coach

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No, they don't. They've won a single game all year out of their division. One. When 40% of your wins come at the hands of Tampa, you have no stakes to a "should have been better" claim. Even if the lousy Mike Smith is your coach. The fact that they had two close losses might be meaningful if that weren't true for every team across the league.

Atlanta does have OL health issues, but they weren't impressive when healthy and, after two years of this, it is very hard to feel confident some of these guys will ever stay on the field.

Your break down of SF's roster seems etched in hyperbole. That is a team that could be more aptly described as having more talent than their record, has plenty of young talent and a there is no reason why a good GM couldn't navigate them through the age transition.