San Francisco 49ers

Jed York proved once again that he's the cause of the 49ers' problems

Published Jan. 2, 2017 5:09 p.m. ET

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Dieter Kurtenbach

San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York said it again, and again, and again Monday, a day after he fired his head coach after the final game of the season for a third straight year and send his right-hand man and general manager out the door as well.

"Nothing I’m going to say is going to be satisfactory."

He was wrong.

Some accountability for turning one of the NFL's proudest franchises into an unstable, politics-ridden laughingstock would have satisfied more than a few 49ers fans.

Admitting that he was the common denominator in the 49ers' descent to the bottom and that he's learned from the experience would have been satisfying.

Him saying that his ego and at times petulance interfered with the success of the team he was put in charge of eight years ago, at age 28, would have satisfied.

But he didn't say anything like that.

If York thought he was under fire before Monday, he's about to find out how high the burners can actually go in the Bay Area.

Because instead of saying something satisfying — something self-reflective and calming — York decided to say the worst possible thing when he was asked why he wasn't stepping aside in the effort to clean house and rebuild the 49ers into a winning franchise:

"I own this football team. You don’t dismiss owners. I’m sorry... that's the case...but that’s the facts." 

And so long as York is the "owner" of the 49ers — he's really just the team's CEO, his mother owns the team and put him in charge — the 49ers will likely remain one of the NFL's worst run franchises, and poorly run franchises don't win in this league.

York said the franchise needs a culture change if it's going to return to its once-winning ways — but that starts at the top, with him.

Monday, York refused to admit that he made a mistake in firing Jim Harbaugh at the end of the 2014 season, that he woefully overestimated Jim Tomsula, who seemed closer to a man who won a contest than a viable NFL head coach, and that he made the wrong choice in maintaining Trent Baalke after the 2015 season, when he brought in Chip Kelly to be Tomsula's successor.

But York was adamant that he was right to fire both Kelly and Baalke on Sunday, because now the 49ers will have a clean slate that will be attractive to head coaches and general managers alike.

But considering the dysfunction in Santa Clara — the 49ers are the first modern NFL team to fire coaches after first-year head coaches in back-to-backs seasons — what top-flight football mind would want to work with York?

York is right, he cannot be fired as the team's CEO, but he could certainly take a backseat in the day-to-day operations of the team. And it certainly didn't sound like York was interested in that kind of arrangement moving forward.

"It’s got to be a partnership. It’s got to be a collaboration between me, the head coach and the general manager, so we can get this thing right.” 

A partnership between a general manager and a head coach could work in Santa Clara — the 49ers have money, some talent, and a lot of good draft picks coming up — but not so long as York demands that its a triumvirate of power.

He's a meddler who is out of his depth, and he refuses to admit either fact.

And without pause or smirk, he declared Monday "I don’t make football decisions."

If that's the case, why does York need to be part of a three-man partnership?

York is definitely the captain of a leaky boat, though. He is notorious for leaking information about Harbaugh to NFL news breakers (sometimes through a proxy, to be fair) when that relationship started heading south, creating justification for firing the coach who was well known to not think much of his much younger boss and his desire to interject in "football decisions."

And while it wasn't York who leaked out Kelly and Baalke's firing earlier this weekend, it was almost certainly one of the three men in that sentence, and Kelly was reportedly livid upon finding out he was being dismissed after one year.

Though York did let the players know that Kelly was out via text, so we know the fingers are still working.

The 49ers do need a new culture, desperately, but the team's culture wasn't a byproduct of losing, losing was a byproduct of the 49ers' culture.

And York, more than anyone else in the organization, is responsible for fostering it.

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