The 49ers have been the best team in football the past three years. They were one play away from winning the Super Bowl and one play away from reaching two others.
To get back in that position, they are going to have to overcome what has been a horrendous offseason. It continued on Sunday night when troubled defensive end Aldon Smith was arrested at the airport after yelling “bomb” at LAX. Police suspect he was drunk at the time, which comes months after he was arrested for DUI and spent part of last season at a rehab facility.
“We are disappointed to learn of the incident today involving Aldon Smith,” 49ers general manager Trent Baalke said in a statement. “As this is a pending legal matter and we are still gathering the pertinent facts, we will have no further comment.”
Baalke may have a form statement in which he just has to change the names and details, because he has been sending out quite a few of these releases.
49ers cornerback Chris Culliver on Friday pleaded not guilty to felony hit and run and reckless driving after he drove a car into a bicyclist and fled in an incident last month. He is the player who underwent sensitivity training after his anti-gay remarks leading up to the Super Bowl after the 2012 season. He has done outreach to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
On Thursday, 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick was one of three NFL players named in a Miami police report involving a woman who passed out in a hotel and later woke up in a hospital not knowing how she got there. Kaepernick, 49ers wide receiver Quinton Patton and Seahawks wide receiver Ricardo Lockette — a former 49er — were with the woman at a Miami hotel where Lockette lives, according to the Miami Police Department report. The police say it’s too early to determine whether a crime was committed.
If the 49ers’ issues were confined to the law, then perhaps the franchise-reviving duo of Baalke and coach Jim Harbaugh would be able to overcome this — and they still might. But the offseason’s troubles started before any legal matters came into play.
The 49ers reportedly were close to trading Harbaugh to the Browns for draft picks. The two sides immediately denied it, starting with a late-night Baalke statement. But the disharmony between the two is no secret. Harbaugh wants to be paid like a Super Bowl-winning coach, but Baalke and the franchise want to win a Super Bowl before committing that kind of cash to their coach.
Reaching that goal seems to get less likely with each news story. The 49ers were good enough to win a Super Bowl each of the past three seasons, but came up empty each time. They have the talent to stay at that elite level next season, but will have to rediscover the kind of franchise consistency that has escaped them this offseason.
With AP