Jim Tomsula is one of the obvious answers, but can you guess the other head coach the 49ers hired that made this list?
Starting with Dick Nolan, the San Francisco 49ers have hired some of the greatest coaches in NFL history. Before Nolan, there wasn’t a single playoff victory in the club’s name. Nolan won three divisional titles in eight seasons.
A few years after Nolan departed, some guy named Bill Walsh came along and won three Super Bowls, six division titles, the 1981 AP NFL Coach of the Year, and is recognized as one of the most innovative football minds ever to grace the sidelines.
After Walsh, all George Siefert needed to do was keep the Ferrari on the road. Siefert ended up winning over 76 percent of his games from 89-96, and that included a pair of Super Bowl wins as well as seven division championships.
Then there’s Jim Harbaugh, who helped the 49ers get back on track after a poor decade, turned Alex Smith from a bust into an efficient quarterback, and took the 49ers to three straight NFC Championships.
Kyle Shanahan has picked up where Harbaugh left off. However, the blemishes in between those two and the time gap between Steve Mariucci and Harbaugh’s arrival leave plenty to be desired. So much so that CBS Sports listed two of those names as the worst coaching hires in NFL history.
13. Dennis Erickson (49ers)
Record: 9-23
It was always going to be tough to replace Steve Mariucci, who helped cultivate Hall of Fame talent and led four playoff runs in six seasons atop the 49ers. Choosing Erickson, who had managed a 31-33 mark in four years with the rival Seahawks, ended up setting the stage for a total teardown in San Francisco, with successor Mike Nolan infamously opting for Alex Smith over future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers in the 2005 NFL Draft.
Erickson was a dominant head coach…in college. He failed to have a winning record in Seattle with Warren Moon as his quarterback. Moon once called Erickson “a little too lax,” pointing to Erickson not fining players for strolling in late for meetings, and highlighting how that attitude was the reason why the Seahawks lost close games.
Erickson jumped back to Oregon State, where he was 16 games over .500, before a disastrous tenure with the 49ers. Julian Peterson stood up for Erickson, saying his hands were tied:
“It was bad timing, really. The players enjoyed Dennis Erickson. I didn’t want him to leave; I thought he was a good coach. I just thought his hands were tied. College is different from being in the NFL. In college, you can recruit your own guys. You can [say], ‘This guy is playing better, I want him in the game.’ But when you get to the NFL, that guy’s check might be a little bit larger, even though [the other] guy might be playing better.
“It was a big trickle effect. It starts at the top when you’re not winning, and they’ve got to put the blame on somebody. One year, we had the injury bug. When your top five or six players get hurt, nobody can win.”
As you might have guessed, Jim Tomsula was the other coach on the list, checking in at No. 6:
6. Jim Tomsula (49ers)
Record: 5-11
San Francisco became an NFC powerhouse under Jim Harbaugh from 2011-2014. When a reported power struggle with 49ers brass resulted in his abrupt split, Tomsula was tasked with picking up the pieces, despite previously serving as the club’s defensive line coach. And the wins weren’t the only thing to decline, as his reportedly lax approach with practice and player discipline left San Francisco looking like a shell of itself both in performance and attitude.
The 49ers almost hired Adam Gase (who was the then-offensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos, which had Peyton Manning as quarterback). At the 11th hour, after reports indicated the Gase hire was imminent, the 49ers switched to Tomsula. And then you got this gem of a press conference. Reports said this was due to Gase not taking Tomsula on as his defensive coordinator.
Tomsula had no coordinator experience on his resume (well, besides being the head coach of the Rhein Fire in NFL Europe), which led to issues putting a staff together since it appeared he hadn’t “paid his dues” (see Singletary, Mike, don’t see Campbell, Dan). That, along with the 49ers having a litany of retirements during the 2015 offseason, had Tomsula set up to fail.
Tomsula was a bit too much of a players’ coach. Like Erickson’s lax attitude towards tardiness, Tomsula tried to give “social media” breaks, which resulted in one of the worst offenses in 49ers history. And don’t get me started on his post-game pressers where #Fartgate was a thing.
Initially, it seemed like the 49ers could have avoided all of this by just sticking with Gase. Now that we’re a decade removed, we have seen what Gase’s head coaching career blossomed into. It’s doubtful he would have fared much better.
So, however you look at it, the 49ers were hosed for 2015. This was a rough time to be a fan.
At first glance, you may think it’s a bit strange that Chip Kelly didn’t make this list in some way, but all of the 49ers’ issues in 2016 (Kelly’s one and only season, following Tomsula’s one and only season) were not squarely on the coach. A lot of the issues came from the general manager, Trent Baalke. As you’ve read, Baalke had the bright idea to inform the soon-to-be-hired head coach, Gase, that Tomsula would be his defensive coordinator. He was also the guy who, that offseason, no coaching candidate wanted to work with, and who hired Chip Kelly.
So it was a bad hire. Like Erickson, Kelly was a better college coach, but had a bit more success in the NFL. Well, initially.
You know how this story ends: The 49ers fired both Baalke and Kelly at the end of 2016, found a new general manager and head coach in John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan, respectively, and have had the longest coaching tenure in the York ownership regime.
And Baalke? Well, he went to the Jacksonville Jaguars and got fired again. In a twist of irony, rather than finding a coach willing to work with him, the Jaguars instead wanted a better candidate pool and fired Baalke to increase their options.