In 49ers news today, San Francisco 49ers general manager Trent Baalke has come out in defense of his beleaguered team, asserting that the team has strong talent and moral character.
Per Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk, Baalke isn't happy with inferences that his team is made up of bad people doing bad things: “Those are damn good guys that work awfully hard at being good people and good football players,” Baalke stated, via an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. “So respect that as well. Respect the masses because the masses are doing it right. And we’ll get the other things fixed.”
Baalke did state the off-field distractions surrounding players like Colin Kaepernick, Aldon Smith, and Chris Culliver are undesirable for a team attempting to focus on football, but he believes that those incidents are just one angle of the entire story of the 49ers:
“There is concern,” Baalke stated, as transcribed by Smith. “We hold ourselves to a high standard. The community deserves that. We represent the community. We don’t take that lightly. It’s important to us. [Reporters] write a lot of things when guys do things out of character, which [reporters] should. I expect you to write on those. But I would also expect the same when our players our doing a lot of community service, are doing a lot of extra to be a standup part of this community."
"And our players work awfully hard at that. Awfully hard at that.”