On Thursday, the San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York and General Manager Trent Baalke introduced their new head coach, Jim Tomsula, to the media. Tomsula replace Jim Harbaugh, who excepted the head coaching job at the University of Michigan. He has been a coach for 26 years and has had has been a coach in the NFL for 8 years. He has been a defensive line coach for the San Francisco 49ers for that entire tenure and now will be the full time head coach for the 1st time since he was the head coach of the Rhein Fire in NFL Europe in 2006. He coached the 49ers as an interim coach one time in 2010 in a 49ers win over the Arizona Cardinals 38-7. He played defensive line at Middle Tennessee State for one year before transferring and playing for three years for Catawba College.
Tomsula has not decided whether he will run a 3-4 defense like the 49ers have been doing or switching to a 4-3, saying that he needs to wait till the hiring process of his coaches is completed 1st. He however did say he wants to have an aggressive smash mouth type of defense, within the rules of the game. He also wants to be aggressive on the offensive side of the ball, saying. “I’m a big fan of running and however that needs to get done. Really, we all talk about the vertical pass, but it is pretty when you see two guys get together and knock that guy off the ball and the D-lineman knock the guy back into the gap. That is pretty too.”
He also commented on getting his QB Colin Kaepernick some help in the offseason by bringing someone in to work with him. “We’re going to have, not just Colin and not just the quarterbacks, but for everybody going through. Player development and teaching players and coaching players in skill development, I am passionate about that. I think that is very equally as important as the schematic itself. I’m excited about the possibilities, the things we can do with Colin Kaepernick, how we can help him keep growing”, said Tomsula.
In response to a questions regarding Kaepernick being “unleashed” more than he was last year, Tomsula said that he just wanted people to have fun while playing football. He mentioned Kaepernick’s ability to run, throw, and change the pace and speed of the game. He talked about his arm, legs, and vision and that he has the ability to do a lot of things that most QBs in the league do not have the ability to do. He just wants him to continue to work on places of improvement while accentuating his current strengths, but he mentioned doing that with all his players, not just Kaepernick.
Jed York was asked about why Tomsula? York went on to talk about his wealth of knowledge of the sport, saying, “Being a head coach in different places, being on the offensive side and being on the defensive side, understanding how to coach as coaches and how to have the right game management, how to operate a game and how to operate an entire program, those are the skill sets, to me, that separated Jim Tomsula apart from any candidate that we talked to.”
The upcoming season for the San Francisco 49ers is going to be an extremely interesting one. Some coaches come in and want to change everything, have their own hand-picked QB, and put their stamp on the team. However, when a coach is promoted from within, it’s usually a sign that you want to keep things going in the same direction. The 49ers went from one play from going to the Superbowl to missing the playoffs and finishing with a .500 record. Do they return to greatness next year or are bigger changes in the future yet to come?
