The San Francisco 49ers hit another low on Sunday with an 32-17 road loss to a Detroit Lions team simply playing out the string in 2015. The 49ers, at 4-11, are in the midst of their first losing season since Mike Singletary's last year in town (2010). There's plenty of places to point the finger, but the buck stops with head coach Jim Tomsula. Here's three reasons why the team needs to fire him after year one.
3. It's A Joke Right Now
Any time we see a national expert address Tomsula on television, it's always with a wry smile peaking out of the corner of their lips. Everything about Tomsula has become a punchline now, from fart sounds in an early interview to the hundreds of stills which circulate the Internet of the 49ers HC making goofy faces on the sideline.
It's a depressing circus of Internet memes and disrespect on both social media and in the traditional media with Tomsula on the sidelines. There's not much here to suggest that will change in 2016.
NEXT READ: 10 potential replacements for Jim Tomsula
2. The Colin Kaepernick Debacle
Via Ann Killion of the SF Chronicle:
"Fox’s Jay Glazer, a frequent recipient of information coming from the 49ers’ leaky pipeline, reported that Colin Kaepernick’s time with the 49ers might not be over. Why? Because if the 49ers hire another head coach, that coach might decide he wants Kaepernick on the team."
If it's going to be a decision keeping Kaepernick/firing Tomsula and releasing Kaepernick/keeping Tomsula, Kaepernick's salvagable enough as an athletic talent to win that battle. While the 49ers can move on from Kaepernick with little to no financial consequence, committing to Blaine Gabbert long term or rolling the dice this offseason by looking for a new starter may set this team back even further than trying to solve the Kaepernick riddle.
Kaepernick looked extremely uninspired playing for the Geep Chryst/Tomsula duo. Who's to say another coach can't bring the fire back?
1. Clean Slate
After the controversial reassignment of former president Paraag Marathe, CEO Jed York, GM Trent Baalke and COO Al Guido have emerged as the new brain-trust trifecta of the 49ers. With such a drastic shift in the team's power structure, it only seems logical that the trio will continue cleaning house and try to safe public face by clearing out the unpopular Tomsula.
Tomsula reportedly clashed with Marathe over the use of analytics in game-planning, but Marathe's firing wasn't a vote of confidence for Tomsula -- it was more based on Jed York's suspicions that Marathe had been leaking stories to the media. In short, it's an absolute mess in SF and the only way to prove a willingness to change things (at least, to the casual fans who buy a majority of the tickets) is to dump Tomsula.
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