Reports: Harbaugh has lost 49ers
4th-year coach defends relationship with players
SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Jim Harbaugh has no time for Deion Sanders, Trent Dilfer or others who question whether the fourth-year coach has lost his locker room or the faith of his players.
In an NFL Network show Sunday, Sanders said of 49ers players: “They want him out. They’re not on the same page.”
“Personally, I think that’s a bunch of crap,” Harbaugh responded Monday. “People say what they say.”
Analyst Dilfer offered Monday on ESPN Radio that, “I do think it’s become almost toxic.”
Harbaugh dismissed that, too, by saying, “I haven’t seen Trent or Deion around much.
“When you’re talking about unnamed sources, if somebody’s got a good story to tell, they ought to put their name to it,” Harbaugh said. “If I had a good story to tell, I’d want to put my name to it, so I don’t put a lot of credibility into the unnamed source.”
Harbaugh is in the fourth season of the original $25 million, five-year contract he signed in January 2011 when he left Stanford to become the 49ers coach. San Francisco (2-2) beat the Eagles 26-21 on Sunday to avoid the first three-game losing streak of his tenure, holding one of the NFL’s best offenses without a touchdown.
Harbaugh has said he has an open-door policy and hasn’t heard from CEO Jed York or general manager Trent Baalke that there have been complaints from players. And Harbaugh said players have voiced “nothing specifically” in terms of concerns with how things are going.
“There’s conversations, and we never really talk about those,” Harbaugh said. “Players have good ideas, coaches have good ideas, equipment managers have good ideas, trainers have good ideas, strength coaches. Welcome that. If we haven’t been doing something right or there’s a better way to do it, then let’s get it out in the open, let’s talk about it and we’ll do anything to fix something or make it better. That’s the kind of relationship we have.”
The 49ers, who host former quarterback Alex Smith and the Kansas City Chiefs this coming Sunday, rallied in a rare strong second half to send the Eagles to their first defeat. Harbaugh spoke of the “joy” of coaching a game like that.
“It’s going to be good for morale, I would suspect. Good for my morale,” he said later. “But we got to keep going.”
Harbaugh described his relationship with York, Baalke and the front office as “very good.”