The 49ers last night fired coach Jim Tomsula just hours after the season-ending 19-16 OT victory against the Rams at Levi’s Stadium, the "second time in back-to-back seasons the 49ers announced the departure of their head coach immediately after the season-ending game," according to Matt Maiocco of CSNBAYAREA.com. 49ers CEO Jed York is "scheduled to hold a press conference" today at 10:30am PT to address Tomsula's departure. A source said that the 49ers "must pay Tomsula the remainder of his scheduled" $10.5M as part of the four-year contract he signed last January that averages $3.5M a year. Tomsula’s fate "might have been sealed on Friday morning when a meeting took place" that included, among others York and COO Al Guido, who is "expected to take over as team president after the Super Bowl." Before and again after yesterday's game, Tomsula said that he "had not spoken with York about his future with the organization" (CSNBAYAREA.com, 1/3). USA TODAY's Lindsay Jones noted Tomsula was the hire York and GM Trent Baalke "wanted last January, but his one-year stint as head coach was a failure." The 49ers "finished 5-11 and were never a factor in the NFC West" (USATODAY.com, 1/3). Meanwhile, Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio reported Baalke is "believed to be safe, and that would give him the ability to hire a head coach that he could work with moving forward in an effort to turn this team back into a contender” (“Football Night In America,” NBC, 1/3).
TROUBLE AT THE TOP? In S.F., Scott Ostler in a front-page piece wondered if the changes will end with a new coach, or if that is "merely the opening shot in the beleaguered York-DeBartolo family’s desperate efforts to return the team to those bygone days of ... winning?" Tomsula’s firing "was evidence that the ownership family wants change pronto." Ostler: "This is a time of crisis for the 49ers" (S.F. CHRONICLE, 1/4). CSNBAYAREA.com's Ray Ratto wrote the 49ers are as they are "because nobody in the present football hierarchy that begins with York is capable of proactive thinking." The York-Baalke partnership "has developed a seemingly limitless ability to react at the expense of proacting, and that company failing has presented York with this new conundrum." Neither of them "will be able to coherently explain what they are doing to the coaching candidates they engage, or to their alienated fan base" (CSNBAYAREA.com, 1/3). In San Jose, Tim Kawakami notes York and Baalke were "conspicuously absent" after Sunday's game, ending Tomsula's tenure with the team via press release. Kawakami: "How brave of York and Baalke to end the absurd experiment this way. How typically callow and how symbolic of the leadership vacuum in this franchise. ... If you're a great coaching candidate, is that what you want to see?" (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 1/4). ESPN Radio's Mike Golic said, "What a joke. That organization, what they had with (Jim) Harbaugh coaching that team and what he did, to where they are now. ... You reap what you sow. You did it to yourself, you absolutely did it to yourself. What an embarrassment they've turned into” (“Mike & Mike,” ESPN Radio, 1/4).
SERGEANT YORK: SI.com's Melissa Jacobs wrote despite a "large contingent of the 49ers fan base pushing for his ouster, York is unlikely to fire himself." And "short of an Eddie DeBartolo-like scandal, there is little hope for his ouster from York’s mother, and team matriarch, Denise." But there are "steps to change the trajectory of this previously storied organization." York needs to "fully come to grips with the reality that his franchise has become a laughingstock in just a single year" (SI.com, 1/3).
