coremiller said:
All of York's moves have to be viewed in light of the new stadium situation. He alienated a huge chunk of the fan base with the new stadium by a) moving the team 45 miles south of SF, and especially b) requiring existing season ticket holders to buy PSLs to keep their tickets. My father had been a season ticket holder at the Stick since the late 80s and was furious that after having been a loyal customer for 25 years (including during the 1999-2010 era when they had only 2 winning seasons in 12 years), they now wanted him to pay several thousand dollars per seat just for the right to keep keep buying tickets at double the previous price. There is a strong perception that the only reason York hired Harbaugh in the first place was that he needed a good coach to improve the on-field product during the new stadium marketing campaign. Harbaugh was expensive, and Harbaugh also demanded that his staff be paid top dollar -- under Harbaugh, the 49ers had the highest paid coordinators in the league. Reportedly, Harbaugh was even willing to take less money for himself to ensure his staff was well paid. Now, the 49ers probably have the lowest paid coaching staff in the league. There's a feeling that once the PSLs and suites at the new stadium had been sold (all on long-term multi-year commitments), York got cheap and no longer wanted to pay the going rate for a top-flight staff.
Yikes, that's a pretty ugly narrative.
It will be interesting to see what they do with Tomsula, who seems to check all the right boxes for York - ie, loyal, cheap - but all the wrong boxes in terms of actual competence. I don't think the team is in that bad shape from a talent/roster perspective. They have some good players, few truly bad contracts, and will be freed from all the dead money next year. Give them a good coach and a good offseason in terms of savvy FA signings and a solid draft and they could be a frisky, potential playoff team again next year, if not a true Super Bowl contender. But that would require firing Tomsula and admitting that some significant mistakes were made after the Harbaugh departure.