Jed York can’t officially hire Kyle Shanahan until after Super Bowl LI, but he didn’t make a secret out of who the 49ers‘ next head coach will be. The point man on the 49ers’ GM and HC hiring processes, York referenced Shanahan as his coach in an interview with TheMMQB.com’s Peter King.
“So many opportunities are missed in the NFL because people don’t want to do something different. We’re OK with that, because I am confident in Kyle and [new GM] John [Lynch],” York said, via King. “John has watched John Elway, and how he’s built a team in Denver. As easy as it is to say he hasn’t built a team yet—I get that—I talk to Kyle, and he says John is the most prepared of all the TV [people] he meets in the production meetings before games.
“We understand we’ll have to live with growing pains, but I’m willing to do that because I believe the upside with both of them is so great.”
King reports York met with Lynch in both San Francisco and Atlanta last week, with Shanahan also meeting with Lynch in Atlanta, both before scheduled summits with GM finalists George Paton and Terry McDonough. San Francisco will give six-year contracts to both Lynch and Shanahan after York made the most stunning hire of the year on Sunday night.
Here’s more out of the 49ers’ hire, along with some other news out west.
- Assistant GM Tom Gamble will be given a chance to prove he should remain with the 49ers, Matt Maiocco of CSNBayArea.com tweets. Gamble ascended to his current position last summer. Part of the fallout from last night’s stunning Lynch announcement was the new GM already had an experienced personnel mind for his top lieutenant. Gamble, who’s enjoyed two stints with the 49ers, will have an audition period through the draft, per Maiocco. Gamble worked with Chip Kelly in both Philadelphia and San Francisco as well, but the Eagles fired him after the 2014 season.
- Carson Palmer confirmed he hasn’t made his decision about returning for a 15th NFL season. “I guess nothing’s ever official until it is, but I’d like to play if my body responds the way I hope,” the 37-year-old Cardinals quarterback said in a text message to Dan Bickley of the Arizona Daily Republic. Palmer missed a game this season because of a concussion. A Sunday report put the statuses of both Palmer and Larry Fitzgerald in doubt. Palmer is due a base salary of $15.5MM in 2017, with a $2MM roster bonus attached to his employment. The Cardinals have not placed a timetable on Palmer and Fitzgerald but would like to know the duo’s decisions by mid-February.
- Former Vikings wide receivers coach George Stewart will move to Los Angeles and become the Chargers‘ special teams coach, Alex Marvez of the Sporting News reports (on Twitter). Stewart resided as the Vikings’ longest-tenured assistant coach prior to making this decision, having coached Minnesota’s receivers since 2007.
- An NFL return to San Diego is not expected to occur for the foreseeable future, Tom Krasovic of the San Diego Union-Tribune notes. While the league would look to San Diego if it planned to expand, that’s not on the agenda, Krasovic reports. And a source informs him another team relocating there is not expected to happen. Some familiar with the inner-workings of NFL stadium procurement believe Dean Spanos and Stan Kroenke, now tied together in Los Angeles, would try to discourage fellow owners from supporting another team from moving to San Diego. The southern California city’s appeal to the league has diminished now that L.A. has two teams, per Krasovic.
The 49ers are used to dealing with inexperience, and I’m sure if they had a choice they’d live with John Lynch’s inexperience over Jed Dork’s inexperience any day of the week…with that being said, I like the hires they’ve made and I think that with someone like Lynch on board at least they will be able to re-establish a winning culture in their organization…I think it would serve them right to bring in Mike Shanahan and Mark Domenik in some capacity so they can all work together to give Kyle what he needs to turn this ship around
And as far as the Rams and Chargers go, both teams should’ve stayed in their prospective cities, at least the Rams anyways…everyone in LA knows that the Raiders are LA’s team and would’ve been the most successful in bringing football back to the LA market
Spanos should not have ANY input on bringing a team back to SD. His ego and desire for a city-funded downtown stadium ended with him heading to LA and screwing the charger fans. My two hopes are that someone steps up and has a team/stadium deal in place and that Spanos can’t fill the 30000 seat place where the Chargers will play for the next two years. Really too bad that the Raiders can’t move to SD instead of Vegas – that would really cause Spanos to have a stroke.
San Diego will never have another NFL team. I don’t like spanos but this is the cities fault. Opponents routinely took over the stadium. What owner would want to deal with that.
How long before Spanish ask the people of LA to build him a stadium?
I can’t believe the chargers wouldn’t want to play in that outdated dump full of opposing teams fans with no support from the city. No one will ever play in that city again
Those of you who think the Chargers left San Diego
because of the fans lack of support do not understand
what Spanos did to the fans. He would not negotiate with
the city and then proclaimed he was going to Los Angeles.
Then when he found out the Rams and Kronke were
moving there, he came crawling back to San Diego
claiming he always wanted to stay. San Diego fans and
citizens are not stupid. They told Spanos to kiss off.
Exactly. The Raiders would sell out every game at the Q. Any other team that would move to Sd would have much better support than the Chargers, because the owners won’t be the Spanos’s.