As the 49ers get set to take on the Bears, Matt Maiocco of CSNBayArea.com can’t help but reflect on how either Chicago offensive coordinator Adam Gase and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio could have wound up as head coach in San Francisco. As the 49ers’ defensive coordinator, Fangio gave the 49ers a top five defense, but, of course, he was ultimately passed over for Jim Tomsula.
Maiocco hears that if Gase got the 49ers’ head coaching job, he would have kept Fangio on staff and given him full autonomy over the defense. GM Trent Baalke floated the idea of Tomsula taking over as defensive coordinator to Gase, according to one source, but Gase was wary about giving that job to someone with no experience regarding the secondary.
Here’s more from around the NFL:
- Even though Chris Johnson has been placed on IR-DTR and Andre Ellington is dealing with a toe injury, the Cardinals still have no interest in signing Ray Rice, according to Kent Somers of the Arizona Republic (on Twitter). Despite not playing in an NFL regular season game since 2013, and not receiving a workout this year, Rice continues to train in the hopes of getting another shot at the NFL.
- NFL executives have been informed by the league office that the 2016 salary cap will likely come in between $147MM-$155MM, per Jason Cole of Bleacher Report (on Twitter). If the cap comes in at the higher end of that range, it will represent a significant increase over this year’s cap of $143MM.
- The NFL is likely to do away with the Veteran Combine it ran early this year, Cole tweets. Apparently, the league felt that they did not get enough of a return on the combine given the cost of holding it.
- Baylor wide receiver Corey Coleman has indicated to multiple sources that he’s strongly considering entering the NFL Draft, Rand Getlin of NFL.com tweets.
Ray Rice made a terrible, disgusting mistake and he has suffered the consequences of his actions…other players have made poor decisions and have been able to come back and have another chance at making things right…it’s time for his name to be taken off the black list and get another shot
I agree he should not be black listed but looking at his performance his last year in Baltimore where he ran for under 700 yards I wonder if teams view the return as not worth the PR hassle.
Yeah the shelf life of an NFL running back isn’t very long so I could see that the interest in him could be limited for that reason…I just think the fact that he hasn’t even had a workout is kind of ridiculous and we’ve hit the point where enough is enough, somebody needs to give him a look
Change the 3.1 YPC from 2013 to 4.1 and Rice surely would’ve gotten another crack at NFL employment by now. Teams aren’t going to go through the PR headache for a subpar player. Fellow domestic abuser Greg Hardy seems to be a much worse person than Rice, but the Cowboys put up with him because he’s a major on-field asset.
They have lost 7 out of 8 games he’s started not a real asset
On the field, he is. There are countless good players who are on bad teams. That doesn’t mean they aren’t real assets.
I figured the veteran combine would end after the profound success of Michael Sam.