"don't be ridiculous!"

So the 49ers have chosen Trent 'Baalke' Bartokomous to be their new general manager (sorry, but I saw the 'Perfect Strangers' reference on a website and couldn't resist!). Not surprisingly, a whole lot of discussion and fuss is going on right now; I might as well throw in some of my thoughts too:

I'm fine with it! As has been said, Baalke has been unofficially interviewing for the job ever since former G.M. Scot McCloughan left the team, and after all that, if Jed York believes he is the best choice, then there it is. It appears that many other people throughout the league think very highly of Baalke as well.

The time is not now to assume that he's the wrong choice as many fans are doing... we won't know for several years. And more immediately, will he be able to produce the popular pick of Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh as new Niner head coach? Well, it will reflect well on his ability to get things done if he can, although it appears that Jed York has been working on the prospect of getting Harbaugh for some time now. I've read too that Harbaugh himself has 'approved' the hiring of Baalke, even though that's kind of backwards. Harbaugh has that much clout right now, doesn't he? After all, the Stanford Cardinal did just win the Orange Bowl!

It wasn't long ago that fans and pundits were wondering why Mike Singletary was shown the door with one game in the regular season remaining... why not just let him finish out the season? Well, if the Niners have Harbaugh in their sights, then they had no time to waste in getting everything into place including the interviewing and selection process for the general manager position which Jed York wanted to have done first.

Was Jed York running a little 'misdirection' in the process of choosing the new G.M., stating that he wanted to run extensive interviews with every good prospect available? Well, if he wanted a realistic chance of getting Jim Harbaugh as his coach, he couldn't very well wait until he could interview every good prospect because he would have had to wait for the post-season to end. He doesn't have to tell the press everything that's going on in his mind, does he? If he's a little bit wily, and as long as everything turns out alright, I'm okay with it!

Which leads to the big question: Is Harbaugh worth it? NFL history is littered with successful college coaches that failed at the NFL level - why would Harbaugh be any different? Well, it's said that he runs an NFL-style of football at Stanford, and his coaching staff has many years of NFL experience among them. Harbaugh has coached (albeit briefly) at the NFL level as an assistant, so he knows the pace of the game. If he is hired, perhaps he would be bringing several of his assistants with him - I am particularly excited at the prospect of him bringing his offensive coordinator... in the Orange Bowl, Stanford proved themselves of utilizing tight ends in their offense: Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker, anyone?

Even though Jed York seems to be moving really quickly, I wouldn't draw too many parallels with his hiring of Singletary a few years ago; Harbaugh and Singletary seem to be polar opposites in their qualifications and approaches to the game. Of course, as of this writing, no decision has been made on the head coaching position, but I am excited at the prospect of landing Harbaugh. Time will tell...