We will never know for sure if Jim Harbaugh was actually headed to the NFL's version of hell, the Cleveland Browns, but when multiple respected sites like this one, for example, posted it first, you have to read and take notice.
And yes, these guys too. OK, some people thought the report was ludicrous. They were in the minority.
Where was Comcast? Matt Maiocco, their 49ers "Insider" was no where to be seen. I like Matt but like his Giants counterpart, Andy Baggarly, they do a lot of waving but rarely break any stories like the Browns doozy. And yes, all the parties involved are in full denial but like Lowell Cohn, I think there's ample meat there to be chewed.
More to the point, Comcast wants us to believe they're all over the local teams with mucho exclusives and news only their guys have and presumably, we all get to munch on. Nope. Not even a whiff. Worse yet, and again, I'm going with the notion that the story has legs, Dave Feldman, one of Comcast' chief anchor is a good buddy of Harbaugh. You'd figure Feldman would have known about this one way or another, hello?
Oh, KNBR, what were they doing? How about talking about the weather. I swear to God. You'd think the bleeder would be all over this, but noooooo.
Oh, KNBR, what were they doing? How about talking about the weather. I swear to God. You'd think the bleeder would be all over this, but noooooo.
I doubt the story has legs. 49ers already called it "ridiculous". Harbaugh is going to take over a weak program by giving up a bunch of draft picks for him?? No....
ReplyDeleteComcast your new sports leader. I find it pathetic that Bucher has to beg every game. Please listen to me on the 95.7 the game.
ReplyDeleteAlso don't be surprised the Niners fired Mariucci, after he turned the Niners around.
You, anonymous @5;48, are retarded. Mariucci turned the 49ers around? In what universe? The Niners were 36-12 in Seiferts last three seasons. His inability to be able to beat the Packers doomed him. Mariucci was no better as history turned out. Both Seifert and Mooch coached elsewhere and failed miserably. Both were able to ride the last tattered tales of the Walsh dynasty, but left to their own devices were unmasked as average at best.
DeleteSeifert won two superbowls.the first with a walsh made roster.the second was all his.since you like to throw the retarded tag how about tagging yourself RETARD.
DeleteGeorge's Super Bowl in 1994 was a one year blow out the cap and ruin the franchise for a decade move. When George went to Carolina the panthers were a 9-7 team...after two years with Seifert they were 1-15 and way over the cap. Walsh is the type of brain that desingns cars....Seifert and Mooch are the type that repaint cars.......RETARD.
DeleteSounds more like a rumor than breaking news, especially considering the source is a site that regularly publishes "he said, she said" stories. Until it's proven the Niners really did try to trade Harbaugh, I'll give the locals a pass.
ReplyDeleteESPN confirmed the report. Click on Rich's link.
DeleteApparently a bunch of national outlets had the story and the 49ers of course are denying it, but it isn't surprising. Harbaugh wants a long term deal and the Niners haven't yet given him his much deserved extension because of his failure to win a Superbowl. Cleveland was going to give up a package of draft picks and the deal was in place, according to the reports, but Harbaugh nixed it. Why would he ever want to go to one of the worst franchises in the NFL, a team that has done little of anything of note since Jim Brown left there in the mid 1960s. Still I don't u8nderstand why this was even a possibility. Jed York has got to be nuts for nnot locking up Harbaugh long term. This guy saved his franchise from being eternally mediocre when he fell into York's lap from Stanford over three years ago. Making it to three NFC Title games and a Superbowl isn't good enough to warrant a long term contract? Please! You think Jim Tomsula or anyone else is going to lead the Niners to the prized game? And remember what happened when Al Davis traded Jon Gruden to the Bucs after the 2001 season for four draft picks. Gruden reveled in his new team wiping out the Raiders in the 2002 Superbowl. Oakland hasn't had a winning season since then.
ReplyDeleteAfter living through the likes of Dennis Erickson, Mike Nolan, and Mike Singletary, the thought of the 49ers' dismantling their current coaching staff makes me wonder if the ownership has the right leadership. Sure, the offensive coordinator is not the greatest, but he is much better than what they had since Mike Shanahan left. Don't make Tomsula the head coach! He's a nice, lovable guy, but do you think he could match wits with Belichick?
DeleteInfo is hard to get Rich. San Francisco police ran over a small dog and never stopped. Lo and behold the Richmond district cop honcho tells KRON " Even though we have surveillance cameras of the car running over the dog, um, we cant identify the officer or car"..LOL..Damn liar. And where's the "honest cop" here who says he drove by there at that time?? The Police chief is puzzled as too solve this!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm getting a bit fed up with cops shooting kids,cop Kingly funerals,and cops like the Highway Patrol and Alameda Sheriffs RUNNING AWAY IN FEAR of Oakland thugs.
But I DO see them staking out Sunol road- cow as in moo, heaven- for revenue!
This isn't some far-fetched story or some wild rumor. Harbaugh has been at odds over a contract extension as he coming up on the fourth year of a five year deal and wants more security and more money. Can you blame him? Apparently he and GM Trent Baalke have had some tense moments, but I'm sure they will work things out. The Niners lost the NFC Title game on January 20th and the Browns hired Pettrine on January 23rd so this isn't that surprising. Also, Harbaugh is good friends with former GM Mike Lombardi, who left the Browns later that month to go to the Pats. Harbaugh hired Lombardi's son who works in the Niners player personell dept I believe. Lombardi would have solidified his hold on the Browns GM spot if he had pulled off this coup, but he made a good move to get out of Cleveland after the deal fell through. Cleveland is a black hole of an NFL franchise with bad
ReplyDeleteownership, and they haven't been worthy of mention since they lost their original team to Baltimore some time ago. Jed York needs to pony up and pay Harbaugh what he's worth though, because coaches such as Harbaugh don't come around very often. Remember when Jed's dad fired Steve Mariucci in a pique and had no backup plan and ended up with Dennis Erickson? That was the beginning of an eight year run of bad and mediocre teams, and with the club moving into a new stadium and demaindg big bucks from their longtime ticket holders, they don't need another fiasco. Hopefully Jed York has learned something from his Dad's mistake.
This story began on Rants and Raves on Craigslist San Francisco last Monday morning.
ReplyDeleteSomebody posted that the 49ers should trade Harbaugh for 1st round draft picks.
The story then took off.
Lieberman is critical of KNBR for not reporting a ridiculous story? Why should they report a ridiculous rumor. Anyone who knows football realize how far fetched the story is.
ReplyDeleteKnbr will never report on anything thats posibly negative against their broadcast partners. . . The giants,warriors and tje dificulty they are having getting the sf arena built and the niners.the Aldon Smith arrest last season and rehab stint case in point.little coverage at all on the sports leader.the giants are rule #1 they do no wrong and Larry Baer is always right. In case you forget see rule #1.plus it helps to have a puppet like marty lurie who pays to be on the air and repeats whatever the giants say.csnba is just as bad considering all the postgame live coverage they had after niner games and using the feldman\harbaugh relationship in their commercials.
Deleteanon@10:13
DeleteDisagree. KNBR will not aggressively pursue stories that undermine their broadcast partners BUT they do report significant stories that are negative to their teams.
KNBR talk shows were all over Aldon Smith and his DUI for example.
There is a misconception, which Lieberman happily encourages, that it's wrong for a station to promote the teams that they broadcast. That's just plain wrong. The Giants are KNBR partners, KNBR flat out promotes the team and their broadcast of the team's games.
Martie Lurie is a Giant guy, no question about about it, but he's not supposed to be an unbiased reporter. What, you expect he's supposed to be objective and not care whether the Giants win or the other guy's win?
Lieberman likes to raise this phoney argument about KNBR's lack of objectivity because it's just another chance to bash local media.
10:13 am gave a good assessment of KNBR's weakness in reporting.
DeleteThank you and long over due.
When will KNBR give you a story that is critical of the Giants . Never!
Just listen to the love fest that occurs every Saturday morning between the months of April and September.
The KNBR defenders are coming out of the woodwork today.
DeleteKNBR is broadcasting Giant games on Saturday, you expect them not to be partial to the Giants?
DeleteThey pay money to broadcast Giant games, they receive revenue from sponsors for running commercials during Giant games, they are a business that wants to make money, why shouldn't they be partial to the Giants?
You act as if there is something wrong with promoting the team.
There is something about going to CSNBA that emasculates a good writer. Maiocco and Baggarly were very good beat writers when they worked for the PressDemo and Merc respectively. Maiocco broke the ouster of former GM Scott McCloughan before anyone, and Baggarly called out the Giants for not teaching their hitters to be patient in the low minors. Since going to CSN they've done nothing but PR puff pieces for the teams they cover.
ReplyDeleteSo fucking true.
ReplyDeleteIbanez reporting it now. Jeezus H. Christo. I'm commenting on a sports story and I hate sports stuff.
ReplyDeleteGlad someone woke ibanez up to report it.the other night radnich recalled the infamous marichal\roseborro fight but got it wrong by claiming roseborro attacked marichal when it was marichal attacking.plus he was off by three years.hes to lazy to fact check or care.he just sees money as the only angle on stories he covers.
DeleteBaggarly did break the steroids story a couple of years ago. But he and Schulman didn't get the Nuekom firing story. I still think MBL told the A's..who tipped of Purdy. It was right after that when Purdy put Wollf up on a pedestal in his writing's. Connect the dots.
ReplyDeletewow rich...is so little happening in bay area radio and tv that you have to go out of your way to bash the locals for not reporting a non story that makes absolutely no sense?
ReplyDeletedont worry...exciting stuff is right around the corner
both cumucrap and clear crap are floating trial balloons in los angeles in the form of happy talk for midday shows
if a ratings hit, look for format changes everywhere
Rich, it really doesn't make sense to criticize CSNBA "Insiders", the Chronicle, KNBR for being slow to report a rumor that likely isn't true.
ReplyDeleteSeems like Mr. Lieberman is constantly looking for any excuse whatsoever to lambast the main stream media here in the bay area whether it's justified or not.
9:39 is so correct. There seems to be a dumbing down of talent when they arrive in the bay area. The same thing happened to Allen Martin at PIX. He was wonderfully fresh and professional when he started, then, magically, he became boring. Bad newswriting, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteAs has been stated on this blog before, Comcast pays for the rights to the shrill for all of the Bay Area's major sports teams (even the Earthquakes). They will not stir the pot.
ReplyDeleteThe Harbaugh story, though seemingly far fetched, has validity. Years ago, Don Shula went from Baltimore to Miami for draft picks. Most recently, Jon Gruden took off for Tampa Bay when the Bucs gave the Raiders some draft picks. It's not as dumbass as one would think.
The handling of the Harbaugh situation is yet another reason why I don't watch any sports news cast on Comcast. The same applies to its website.
When is the sporting public going to learn that they're being spoon fed crap? It's not going to get any better.
Here is a true story.
ReplyDeleteI once tuned into KNBR on a Saturday afternoon to listen to some sports talk, but instead was subjected to 9 hour infomercial for a local baseball club.
This is the old analogy of don't bite the hand that feeds you.
ReplyDeleteSomeone mentioned Bucher. He was one of the best NBA beat writers and it wasn't even close. When everyone was trying to sign Dikembe Mutumbo, Bucher got the scoop. He had a source tell him Mutumbo was on a private jet sitting on a tarmac in Atlanta. That's a scoop.
415 Media/Rich Lieberman hates KNBR and will rip them for anything and everything. Lieberman would have you believe that there's something wrong with KNBR promoting their own product. Furthermore, in the "good old days" that Lieberman perpetually gets all gooey about, KSFO did the exact same thing.
ReplyDeleteSay what you will about KNBR, but you can't deny their long history, going back to the late 1980s as the 'Sports Leader.' 'The Game' is trying to give them some competition but they have little chance to make any kind of an impact in the ratings because 1.) Their signal is on a weak FM band, and 2.) They don't have the 'Big 3' (Giants, Warriors and Niners), on their station. KNBR has had plenty of terrific talent over the years and set the standard. A generation has grown up expecting to hear sports on their station while the 'Ticket' has only been around for a couple of years. Yes, perhaps KNBR is not quite what it used to be, but they have more pull now than ever since they carry the revitalized 49ers and Warriors, and carry the Giants who are coming off of two World Series Titles. They are most fortunate in that regard. The Ticket has some interesting talk shows, and they seem to go more for straight sports than the noise and nonsense you sometimes hear on KNBR, but again, who outside of the Bay Area has even heard of 'The Ticket?' They're always going to be like that guy who is standing in the middle of the room yelling: "look at me!" and only one or two people are even noticing. A pity!
ReplyDeleteHwy 10:19 anon, you got it wrong on the Roseboro/Marichal fight. I was there and Roseboro DID ATTACK Marichal. He wanted Sandy Koufax to throw at Juan because Marichal had been bench jockeying and throwing at Dodger hitters earlier. But Sandy never threw at opposing players, so Roseboro zipped the ball past Marichal and nicked his ear. Juan turned around and barked at Roseboro and said: "Why did you do that!" and then Roseboro, who was two inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than Juan, grabbed him around the neck with one hand and cocked his other hand, getting ready to punch. Google pictures of the fight and you will see it clearly. That's when Marichal nailed Roseboro in the head with the bat. You then see the more popular pictures of Roseboro staggering to the ground and Marichal standing there with the bat poised over his head with two hands, as if he was going to take another whack at him. The actually hit on Roseboro wasn't even that hard. Had it been, the guy would have died. Years later, the two men became friends!
ReplyDeleteI like Matt, too. However, your points are spot on. As for Harbaugh to Cleveland, good riddance. I wish it were true. Yeah, I'm a Niner fan. Saw 'em play at Kesar, which I drove by yesterday with my wife, to get a whiff of my early childhood I barely remember. I don't care for Harbaugh nor do I care for our QB. I'd take Seattle's QB and coach any day over Harbaugh and our QB. Harbaugh is too emotional and it hurts us in officiating; and our QB can't learn what Russell Wilson has: stay in the pocket, then scramble. Don't scramble and then scramble. Russell Wilson has also learned to read and to go through his progressions, and that is why he can extend plays and threw a fourth-down TD against us in the NFC title game. Seattle is on the cutting edge of technology for its players in terms of health and training and other factors, like Bill Walsh and Eddie D and Carmen Policy once had for the Niners. Love Jed York. Can't stand Harbaugh. Once liked our QB. He lost our first Super Bowl and he lost it the same way he lost our NFC Championship game: same pass, same crummy receiver. And, yeah, the Seattle Richard Sherman was correct about Crabtree: he's mediocre.
ReplyDeleteJust to wrap a bow around this legless story; Jed York stated to a Sac Bee reporter that the Browns called inquiring about OC Greg Roman and during the conversation, "oh by the way" would you be interested in a trade for Harbaugh? York, no.. That is hardly a discussion that merits the media scrutiny that took place the last 96 hours..
ReplyDelete