Entire Press conference transcript here.
(Exhale) OK, a lot to get to here. I'll try to break things down so it's an easy and fun read but there was nothing easy or fun coming out of Santa Clara on Monday morning. In my opinion, here are some of the highlights/biggest takeaways from his press conference.
PS- Jed York is strikingly similar to a TV character that I will reveal at the end of the blog. Enjoy!
PS- Jed York is strikingly similar to a TV character that I will reveal at the end of the blog. Enjoy!
"Good morning. It’s a pleasure to be able to address the fans directly today."
-Starting with a bang I see, Jed! It's a pleasure? We never hear from you except from the occasional stupid tweet so how is it a pleasure of yours to finally speak with us about what happened this season? Not like you had an entire season or anything to address the state of your franchise. Not off to a great start..
"The results of this season rest on my shoulders squarely. It wasn’t good enough. I want you to understand that we’re going to do everything that we can and we’re working hard right now to put the pieces in place to get this team back to where it belongs."
-So you take complete blame for what happened this season then immediately reference others by saying that "we" are working very hard to fix this team. Apparently Baalke will be taking on the task in searching for our next head coach, so what are YOU doing specifically to fix this, Jed? Speaking of Baalke...
-Starting with a bang I see, Jed! It's a pleasure? We never hear from you except from the occasional stupid tweet so how is it a pleasure of yours to finally speak with us about what happened this season? Not like you had an entire season or anything to address the state of your franchise. Not off to a great start..
"The results of this season rest on my shoulders squarely. It wasn’t good enough. I want you to understand that we’re going to do everything that we can and we’re working hard right now to put the pieces in place to get this team back to where it belongs."
-So you take complete blame for what happened this season then immediately reference others by saying that "we" are working very hard to fix this team. Apparently Baalke will be taking on the task in searching for our next head coach, so what are YOU doing specifically to fix this, Jed? Speaking of Baalke...
"Trent Baalke will remain the general manager of the 49ers. Trent understands that I’m not satisfied with the current state of this team. Trent’s role is to find the next head coach and continue to build this roster and get us back to championship form. Trent has the skills to do this and get this done. He’s built championship rosters in the past. He’s got the respect of folks around the league and his peers."
-Trent Baalke has built 1 (f*****g, 1) championship-caliber roster in his tenure and that roster didn't win a championship, remember? Seems like that wouldn't be enough for a franchise that hangs Super Bowl banners. Baalke has already shown you that he doesn't have the skills to get you a Super Bowl because you haven't won a Super Bowl. Respected by his peers? He was ROASTED by his peers/media/fans/NFL experts all season and burned a bridge with one of the best coaches in all of football. Then he supported the hiring of Jimmy-T. Great job bringing in Reggie Bush and Jordan Devey for 2015 too, Trent. Guess that earns you another season in Santa Clara, according to Jed York.
-Trent Baalke has built 1 (f*****g, 1) championship-caliber roster in his tenure and that roster didn't win a championship, remember? Seems like that wouldn't be enough for a franchise that hangs Super Bowl banners. Baalke has already shown you that he doesn't have the skills to get you a Super Bowl because you haven't won a Super Bowl. Respected by his peers? He was ROASTED by his peers/media/fans/NFL experts all season and burned a bridge with one of the best coaches in all of football. Then he supported the hiring of Jimmy-T. Great job bringing in Reggie Bush and Jordan Devey for 2015 too, Trent. Guess that earns you another season in Santa Clara, according to Jed York.
"I think I understand what the fans want. They want a team that they can be proud of on Sundays. They want a championship team."
-You know NOTHING about what the fans want. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
-You know NOTHING about what the fans want. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
The Cleveland Browns have hired a search firm to help them with the coach. Have you considered doing that given the situation or not?
“I talked to my uncle this morning for a while. He texted me around 5:15. I called him around5:20 when I got up and I don’t think there’s anybody better to help me as a mentor, as somebody that’s been there, as somebody that’s done it than my uncle. We talked for a long time this morning. And I know that if I need direction, if I need guidance, if I need somebody to help, I’ve got a person I think is the best owner in the history of sports that’s on my team, that’s on my side, that I can turn to anytime.”
-Man, Jed. You are so fast to drop your Uncle's name whenever you need to. Did Eddie D say to fire Harbaugh? Did Eddie D say to move out of San Francisco? Did Eddie D say to keep Trent this season? If your Uncle is such an adviser to you, why isn't he more involved with this organization on a more formal/professional level? Now I remember, it's because your Uncle hates your mother's guts but still wants to make sure his franchise that he built isn't being thrown in the trash without him offering advice/guidance. Either Jed isn't listening to his uncle or Eddie D is secretly the dumbest owner in sports by having his nephew do everything for him.
“I talked to my uncle this morning for a while. He texted me around 5:15. I called him around5:20 when I got up and I don’t think there’s anybody better to help me as a mentor, as somebody that’s been there, as somebody that’s done it than my uncle. We talked for a long time this morning. And I know that if I need direction, if I need guidance, if I need somebody to help, I’ve got a person I think is the best owner in the history of sports that’s on my team, that’s on my side, that I can turn to anytime.”
-Man, Jed. You are so fast to drop your Uncle's name whenever you need to. Did Eddie D say to fire Harbaugh? Did Eddie D say to move out of San Francisco? Did Eddie D say to keep Trent this season? If your Uncle is such an adviser to you, why isn't he more involved with this organization on a more formal/professional level? Now I remember, it's because your Uncle hates your mother's guts but still wants to make sure his franchise that he built isn't being thrown in the trash without him offering advice/guidance. Either Jed isn't listening to his uncle or Eddie D is secretly the dumbest owner in sports by having his nephew do everything for him.
What mistakes did you learn from during the past year?
“I’d say the biggest thing, I think I’ve taken things too personally. Interactions with the media, some of the criticism from fans, I think I’ve internalized that too much and I’ve taken it too personally. I think I’ve done things and we can get into tweets that I’ve sent and thank god you can’t see tweets that I didn’t send. Those things aren’t helpful for the team. As much as I’d like to share how I feel about the team, it’s not helpful for our club for me to talk about how I feel when we win, how I feel when we lose. It’s ultimately a distraction."
-That's the BIGGEST thing you've learned?? No shit social media is a distraction, any 9th grade high school math teacher can tell you that. Why are you even on twitter? You can't say that social media is a distraction and then tweet something out to the fans moments before your press conference. That's like cracking open a beer then saying that being an alcoholic is bad.
“I’d say the biggest thing, I think I’ve taken things too personally. Interactions with the media, some of the criticism from fans, I think I’ve internalized that too much and I’ve taken it too personally. I think I’ve done things and we can get into tweets that I’ve sent and thank god you can’t see tweets that I didn’t send. Those things aren’t helpful for the team. As much as I’d like to share how I feel about the team, it’s not helpful for our club for me to talk about how I feel when we win, how I feel when we lose. It’s ultimately a distraction."
-That's the BIGGEST thing you've learned?? No shit social media is a distraction, any 9th grade high school math teacher can tell you that. Why are you even on twitter? You can't say that social media is a distraction and then tweet something out to the fans moments before your press conference. That's like cracking open a beer then saying that being an alcoholic is bad.
The previous four years you had a very successful head coach. Looking back on it, do you regret not making a bigger effort to keep Jim here as your head coach?
“I think it’s well understood what effort that we made to keep him here. I’m not going to dive into that. I’m not going to get into things that happened behind the scenes and I can’t look backwards. We can’t win games that we’ve already played. We can’t undo decisions that have been made. We need to make sure that all of our effort is focused on the next head coach of the team.”
-In other words: I'm not telling you what happened with Jim Harbaugh and I don't regret my decision. Thanks for not answering that perfectly legitimate question. Jim Harbaugh will though..
“I think it’s well understood what effort that we made to keep him here. I’m not going to dive into that. I’m not going to get into things that happened behind the scenes and I can’t look backwards. We can’t win games that we’ve already played. We can’t undo decisions that have been made. We need to make sure that all of our effort is focused on the next head coach of the team.”
-In other words: I'm not telling you what happened with Jim Harbaugh and I don't regret my decision. Thanks for not answering that perfectly legitimate question. Jim Harbaugh will though..
Do not be deceived. You will reap what you sow.
— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) January 4, 2016
You’ve spoken about holding yourself accountable. What was the timing for today and not speaking up to this point? Was it just get through this season and–?
“No. I think more than anything, with not speaking, I don’t want to be a distraction. I think our head coach needs to be the face of this team on a normal basis in terms of dealing with the media. I try to interact with fans as much as I can on social media. I’m going to continue to do that, but I want to do that in a way that doesn’t distract from the team. So, as much as I’m sure you love hearing from me and having me up here, that’s not my role and it’s not my role to sit and tweet all of my feelings and things like that because you just can’t share everything completely and I think if you can’t share everything completely, which I’m just not able to do in my position, I don’t think it’s the best thing for our team. I think you have to be very careful about how you communicate with fans and make sure that everything that I’m doing is letting our football people build this team and letting our fans be proud of what team is on the field.”
“No. I think more than anything, with not speaking, I don’t want to be a distraction. I think our head coach needs to be the face of this team on a normal basis in terms of dealing with the media. I try to interact with fans as much as I can on social media. I’m going to continue to do that, but I want to do that in a way that doesn’t distract from the team. So, as much as I’m sure you love hearing from me and having me up here, that’s not my role and it’s not my role to sit and tweet all of my feelings and things like that because you just can’t share everything completely and I think if you can’t share everything completely, which I’m just not able to do in my position, I don’t think it’s the best thing for our team. I think you have to be very careful about how you communicate with fans and make sure that everything that I’m doing is letting our football people build this team and letting our fans be proud of what team is on the field.”
-Again with Social Media, what a child. I'll make this easy for you, Jed. So when you get up and address the media, you are speaking to 40-50 people and 5 cameras, tops. Then, and stay with me here Jed, the message gets spread throughout the rest of the media world (the internet,newspapers, Twitter, etc.). When you tweet, you instantly address your 110k followers. Still stuck, Jed? I'll help you out. YOUR LOGIC MAKES NO SENSE. Either be on twitter and address the media consistently (because they are the EXACT same thing) or do none of it (like the vast majority of the other NFL owners do).
Are you further away from where you wanted to be?
“8-8 and 5-11, neither one of them is acceptable to me. I’d rather take a swing like we did on Jimmy T and if you miss, the nice thing about the NFL is they reward you for missing. We have a high draft pick and that’s the thing that I don’t want to be drafting high, but if we don’t compete for championships, I’d much rather be drafting high and be able to add the top-tier talent in the draft to this roster. So, that’s where we are today. It’s not good enough. Trent understands it’s not good enough and we need to continue to add talent to this roster and make sure that we can compete for championships.”
“8-8 and 5-11, neither one of them is acceptable to me. I’d rather take a swing like we did on Jimmy T and if you miss, the nice thing about the NFL is they reward you for missing. We have a high draft pick and that’s the thing that I don’t want to be drafting high, but if we don’t compete for championships, I’d much rather be drafting high and be able to add the top-tier talent in the draft to this roster. So, that’s where we are today. It’s not good enough. Trent understands it’s not good enough and we need to continue to add talent to this roster and make sure that we can compete for championships.”
-Yes, Jed. That's how ALL professional sports do Drafts. The worse your team does, the higher pick you get. It's not a reward. It's half pity, half being fair to every team. Putting your faith in Trent Baalke this draft/coaching search, is completely and consistently rolling the dice. You've learned nothing and continue to make the same mistakes.
I’m just curious if you feel that because of what’s happened, both before you hired Harbaugh and since the way that relationship devolved, all the others things, that this might be a tough sell for an experienced, high-powered coach, qualified coach, that they might not be interested in coming to work here?
“I’m not concerned about that.”
-You should be, because it might cost you the coach you really want and you'll be stuck hiring your Running Back coach. (ten bucks says Tom Rathman will score an interview)
“I’m not concerned about that.”
-You should be, because it might cost you the coach you really want and you'll be stuck hiring your Running Back coach. (ten bucks says Tom Rathman will score an interview)
Another big picture question. We only get these like once a year, so we’ve got ask the big, big ones, the macros. The perception was that Jim Harbaugh was extremely difficult to get along with and that was a large reason why you guys parted ways, that you personally did not like him or get along with him, that Jim Tomsula was the easiest guy in the world to get along with and that’s why you hired him. Can you address that issue? Every owner, every team has the personality of its owner. Are you in need of somebody who you’re comfortable with, who makes you feel good when you’re in a room with them?
“We’re in need of somebody that can win Super Bowls.”
So, personality doesn’t matter?
“We’re in need of somebody that can win Super Bowls.”
Didn’t you have that guy?
“We haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1994.”
“We’re in need of somebody that can win Super Bowls.”
So, personality doesn’t matter?
“We’re in need of somebody that can win Super Bowls.”
Didn’t you have that guy?
“We haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1994.”
Jed York is the best at answering questions, without answering the actual question. He's like a politician, a spoiled politician who had everything handed to him. He is a real-life football version of...
Bobby Newport = Jed York
Now the search for the next head coach begins and we've only just begun the decades of Jed York ownership. Going to my happy place now.
Now the search for the next head coach begins and we've only just begun the decades of Jed York ownership. Going to my happy place now.
Going to a team that actually cares about its fans, has two wonderful stadiums in fantastic locations and hangs world series banners.. Go G's!
By: El Mijo