49ers Clubhouse

Sacramento Bee

49ers need help calling the shots, not the plays

February 13, 2003

By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
SAN FRANCISCO -- Their search for Anybody But Mariucci finally concluded, the masters of suspense sat at a table inside the lovely Four Seasons hotel Wednesday, and by a simple glance at the assemblage it was evident that the old days of the 49ers were just utterly and completely gone.
At one end sat Terry Donahue, beaming like a proud papa as his choice for head coach, Dennis Erickson, was formally being introduced at a nearby dais. At the other end of the table sat a stone-still Bill Walsh, a man who, by all accounts, had virtually no input on the hiring.
And in between? Well, in between sat two very well-tailored suits. The suits contained team president Peter Harris and owner John York -- and, for those who've been following the story closely, the weird, shaky future of this franchise.
Don't worry, that is, about Erickson, the nonstop college winner with a Seattle flameout on his NFL résumé. His time with the Seahawks, a wholly dysfunctional outfit then run by an ambivalent owner who was on the verge of selling the club, bears almost no relation to the rest of his very successful career in football.
Erickson can coach; he can run a football team; he can spot talent. He is without question a better choice than the other three finalists for the San Francisco job, although, given the nature of the S.F. scavenger hunt we've just witnessed, that's maybe not saying so much. Above all, Erickson can capably answer to the new 49ers motto, which, roughly translated out of organization-speak gibberish, reads, "We have to have a coach, so why not him?"
Listen, it's not the end of the world. Give Erickson the same 49ers team that Steve Mariucci got to the NFC semifinals this season, and it'd probably come in right around the same 10 regular-season wins that Mooch squeezed out of it.
But that's just it, of course. We are gathered here today not to trade campfire tales about the time Erickson didn't win the Super Bowl in Seattle, but instead to ask the terribly relevant question of whether Erickson will ever be given a 49ers team even as good as the one that just got Mariucci fired, much less a better one.
That's about John York, that question. It is about the York "business model" you've been hearing so much about, usually at volume 11 and with both ears bleeding. It is about York's vaunted "organizational structure," a thing so stratified that, to hear York tell it, he personally blew out Mariucci rather than risk the coach ever wanting to add some personnel duties to his job description.
It is about York's desire to run the 49ers more as a business (again, translating from the gibberish: cheaper), and just how zealously York and Harris carry out that mission, and just how extensively that mission interferes with Donahue's ability to assemble and retain top athletic talent.
It's really not so much about Dennis Erickson, is the thing. As awful a team as Mariucci inherits in Detroit, there is at least a flicker of recognition in the Lions' ownership that it is time for a new approach. Does Erickson really see a new day dawning in San Francisco?
This was Donahue's hiring, and it made official the transition away from Walsh, who is in the process of becoming the longest-tenured "consultant" in franchise history. Given the ways in which Walsh's presence has complicated things around the Santa Clara headquarters these last few years, that might be taken as a good sign.
But the facts are these: The best you can say about Terry Donahue as an NFL executive is that he is unproven. The best you can say about Donahue's executive superiors is that they sure know how to draft a flow chart. Without someone like Walsh around to administer the occasional finger-wagging, it's easy to imagine a dark and title-free future across the landscape Eddie DeBartolo once roamed with such free-wheeling fury.
It may not come to that; this is still a competitive roster with some fine skill players. But when quarterback Jeff Garcia was asked Wednesday about Erickson's penchant for a more aggressive offense, Garcia, though generally supportive of the hire, responded pointedly, "It wouldn't hurt for us to add more speed at receiver."
A few feet away, York was busy telling reporters that the 49ers had followed their process for hiring a new coach to a T, and praised Donahue for bringing him four candidates who "all fit in the organizational structure."
What remains to be seen is how Garcia's grasp of what's needed coincides with York's determination of how things must be. All of which is to say, Dennis Erickson is the least of it right now.

Tell us what you think on the new 49ers Clubhouse message board.

By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist

SAN FRANCISCO -- Their search for Anybody But Mariucci finally concluded, the masters of suspense sat at a table inside the lovely Four Seasons hotel Wednesday, and by a simple glance at the assemblage it was evident that the old days of the 49ers were just utterly and completely gone.

At one end sat Terry Donahue, beaming like a proud papa as his choice for head coach, Dennis Erickson, was formally being introduced at a nearby dais. At the other end of the table sat a stone-still Bill Walsh, a man who, by all accounts, had virtually no input on the hiring.

And in between? Well, in between sat two very well-tailored suits. The suits contained team president Peter Harris and owner John York -- and, for those who've been following the story closely, the weird, shaky future of this franchise.

Don't worry, that is, about Erickson, the nonstop college winner with a Seattle flameout on his NFL résumé. His time with the Seahawks, a wholly dysfunctional outfit then run by an ambivalent owner who was on the verge of selling the club, bears almost no relation to the rest of his very successful career in football.

Erickson can coach; he can run a football team; he can spot talent. He is without question a better choice than the other three finalists for the San Francisco job, although, given the nature of the S.F. scavenger hunt we've just witnessed, that's maybe not saying so much. Above all, Erickson can capably answer to the new 49ers motto, which, roughly translated out of organization-speak gibberish, reads, "We have to have a coach, so why not him?"

Listen, it's not the end of the world. Give Erickson the same 49ers team that Steve Mariucci got to the NFC semifinals this season, and it'd probably come in right around the same 10 regular-season wins that Mooch squeezed out of it.

But that's just it, of course. We are gathered here today not to trade campfire tales about the time Erickson didn't win the Super Bowl in Seattle, but instead to ask the terribly relevant question of whether Erickson will ever be given a 49ers team even as good as the one that just got Mariucci fired, much less a better one.

That's about John York, that question. It is about the York "business model" you've been hearing so much about, usually at volume 11 and with both ears bleeding. It is about York's vaunted "organizational structure," a thing so stratified that, to hear York tell it, he personally blew out Mariucci rather than risk the coach ever wanting to add some personnel duties to his job description.

It is about York's desire to run the 49ers more as a business (again, translating from the gibberish: cheaper), and just how zealously York and Harris carry out that mission, and just how extensively that mission interferes with Donahue's ability to assemble and retain top athletic talent.

It's really not so much about Dennis Erickson, is the thing. As awful a team as Mariucci inherits in Detroit, there is at least a flicker of recognition in the Lions' ownership that it is time for a new approach. Does Erickson really see a new day dawning in San Francisco?

This was Donahue's hiring, and it made official the transition away from Walsh, who is in the process of becoming the longest-tenured "consultant" in franchise history. Given the ways in which Walsh's presence has complicated things around the Santa Clara headquarters these last few years, that might be taken as a good sign.

But the facts are these: The best you can say about Terry Donahue as an NFL executive is that he is unproven. The best you can say about Donahue's executive superiors is that they sure know how to draft a flow chart. Without someone like Walsh around to administer the occasional finger-wagging, it's easy to imagine a dark and title-free future across the landscape Eddie DeBartolo once roamed with such free-wheeling fury.

It may not come to that; this is still a competitive roster with some fine skill players. But when quarterback Jeff Garcia was asked Wednesday about Erickson's penchant for a more aggressive offense, Garcia, though generally supportive of the hire, responded pointedly, "It wouldn't hurt for us to add more speed at receiver."

A few feet away, York was busy telling reporters that the 49ers had followed their process for hiring a new coach to a T, and praised Donahue for bringing him four candidates who "all fit in the organizational structure."

What remains to be seen is how Garcia's grasp of what's needed coincides with York's determination of how things must be. All of which is to say, Dennis Erickson is the least of it right now.

Tell us what you think on the new 49ers Clubhouse message board.