San Jose Mercury News 3

Dolphins out of Harbaugh sweepstakes; 49ers still in

This is a re-write of a previous post, with updated information. Big thanks to Mercury News teammate Tim Kawakami for helping me work the phones during this coaching search …

Jim Harbaugh, a one-man coaching carousel, left the football world spinning Thursday.
The 49ers are back in the mix. So is Stanford. The Denver Broncos are in the Harbaugh running, too.
But the Miami Dolphins, an purported lock to land Harbaugh in the morning, were completely of the sweepstakes by nightfall.
Jay Glazer of Fox Sports and Chris Mortensen of ESPN both reported about 8 p.m. that the Dolphins have decided to retain current coach Tony Sparano. That shocking twist followed a day of reports saying the Dolphins were on the verge of landing Harbaugh with an offer between $7 million and $8 million per season.
But, as those reports mounted, an NFL source told the Mercury News that Harbaugh had reservations about the Dolphins organization and was looking for reasons to take a job elsewhere. A separate source said the reports of an $8 million offer from the Dolphins are not “anywhere close” to being accurate.


Now, the 49ers’ stiffest competition for Harbaugh’s services could come from right down the road. Stanford emerged as a surprising contender after he met with school officials Thursday morning.
The NFL Network reported that Stanford’s financial proposal, with bonuses, eclipsed the 49ers’ offer. The 49ers were prepared to offer a package that would be worth up to $6 million including incentives during a meeting Wednesday, sources told the Mercury News.
The Cardinal’s chances of retaining their coach also got a potential boost when star quarterback Andrew Luck announced that he would return to school rather than enter the NFL draft.
As if this story needed another turn, another Harbaugh’s fate might hinge on another Stanford quarterback. John Elway, recently appointed to the Denver Broncos front office, is trying to arrange to interview Harbaugh.
Elway, who attended Stanford’s Orange Bowl victory on Monday, is spearheading the Broncos search to replace fired head coach Josh McDaniels. He has said the Broncos prefer to hire a candidate with NFL head coaching experience and added: “I don’t believe anybody that’s not had that NFL experience can make that jump — other than Harbaugh.”
McDaniels, meanwhile, appears out of the running for the 49ers job after a brief flirtation. Sources told The Mercury News that the 34-year-old former Patriots assistant interviewed with Baalke and York via phone Wednesday night when the 49ers began compiling a back-up plan for Harbaugh.
On Thursday, ESPN quoted a source close to McDaniels as saying that the coach was more likely to resurface as an offensive coordinator. McDaniels was reportedly wary of the 49ers’ current power structure consisting of York, Baalke and executive vice president Paraag Marathe.
With McDaniels apparently out, the Harbaugh chase appears back on. He led Stanford to a 12-1 record that included a 40-12 victory over Virginia Tech on Monday.
Harbaugh has only two seasons as an NFL assistant – as a Raiders quarterbacks coach – but was a quarterback in the league for 15 seasons .
If he fades from the 49ers’ picture, the list of candidates could get lengthy. Raiders offensive coordinator Hue Jackson interviewed for the vacancy early Wednesday. Speculation has also centered on coaches such as former Ravens coach Brian Billick, Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg and Falcons offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey.
– Former 49ers coach Mike Singletary is expected to interview for the Minnesota Vikings linebacker coach job. Singletary and Vikings coach Leslie Frazier are close friends and were former Chicago Bears teammates.

 

San Jose Mercury News 2

Getting ready for Buffalo: Antero Niittymaki in goal, team motivation and an update on Craig Rivet.

The quick stuff first: Antero Niittymaki gets his first start in four games and will be looking for his first win since getting three in a row over Dallas, St. Louis and Edmonton.
Beyond that, it’s all about dealing with a Buffalo team that outworked the Sharks back at HSBC Arena on Dec. 9 and skated away with a 6-3 victory.
There was still plenty of follow-up  from that Vancouver game in the media scrum with Todd McLellan this morning.
Drew Remenda started it off by suggesting that despite what Ryane Clowe had to say afterward, he didn’t think San Jose’s compete level was all that bad (and, truth be told, neither did I, having seen much worse during the season).
Here’s what McLellan had to say: “I don’t totally agree. I don’t think we had the tenacity we needed to have to keep pucks alive. We were OK on the initial battle for about three or four seconds, but when the puck moved to the next spot, we weren’t nearly as tenacious as the other team was.”
Later, I wondered what McLellan — who always stresses that motivation needs to come from the players themselves rather than elsewhere — was expecting tonight, at least in part  in the wake of Clowe’s statement.
Here’s how the coach responded:  Motivation, he said, needs to first come from the players “themselves waking up in the morning and motivating themselves on the way to the rink and wanting to play extremely hard and well. That internal motivation should be the first one.
“Teammate motivation, the media motivation, the fan motivation is  secondary. If you don’t have it when you wake up in the morning, good luck. Outside sources can motivate you a little bit, but not enough.”
*****Logan Couture has now gone six games without a goal — his longest stretch of the season. But for now, McLellan plans to just let him play through this period because the chances are coming.
“The last thing we want to do is tinker with Logan Coture as he’s got it going right now,” McLellan said. “If I see his body language kind of diminish or anything like that, I’ll pull up the chances he’s created or that he’s involved in and I think that’ll perk him up quickly.  Things are going well for him, they’re just not going in.
“We’re talking about a rookie that’s leading the league in rookie goals,” he added, “so we’ve got to be a little bit careful.”
*****These are not easy times for Craig Rivet, the former Shark who has been the Sabres’ captain for three seasons after being shipped there the same day Dan Boyle arrived here.
He was a healthy scratch for 11 games, including the one between the Sharks and Sabres on Dec. 9, and for the past two games has been playing as a seventh defenseman.
So when the Sabres had an extremely optional skate this morning and Rivet was not only the only player out there likely to be in the lineup tonight, but also the last one to leave the ice, I had to ask:
Did he stay out there that long for himself, or maybe one of the coaches?
“That’s for me,” he said. “Tonight I’ll be in the lineup and I’m in a position right now where we’re dressing seven D and I’m not going to be playing many minutes so I want to make sure I get my work so that when I do play, I’m going to be ready to play.”
Rivet has long been a media favorite because of his quotability and likability. Ask a question and you get an informative answer.
“It could be worse, it could be better,” he said of his current situation. “Obviously I’d  like to be in a different situation and play more. Feeling that I can still play more and play well, it’s tough, but there’s ways of handling it.  I’m going to have a good attitude toward it, but I’m certainly not happy with it.”
Rivet said there hasn’t been a whole lot of communication with the coaching staff, “but Lindy (Ruff) and I have had a talk recently and he’s given me a bit of an idea what to expect and what my role is.”
The 36-year-old defenseman is earning $3.5 million in the final year of the contract the Sharks gave him, but says he isn’t ready to think about what happens next season.
“I’m focusing on this year,” he said. The NHL season is an extremely long season. Things can happen very quickly, things can change very quickly and I want to make sure that I’m ready.”
Coming back to San Jose yesterday brought back good memories.
“Just being on the plane, flying in here, looking at the mountains and how beautiful it is, I remembered the first time I got traded here, how excited I was,” he said. “The year and a half that  I spent here in San Jose were some of my best times in hockey.”
Great guys and on-ice success were the main reasons, but he also mentioned “fans were outstanding, the place to live is outstanding and it was a very good organization.”
As  upset as he was at the time he was traded, Rivet now has a more understanding view.
“You know what? Now that I look back, Doug had to make decisions, hard decisions that he felt were the best for the team,” Rivet said. “As much as I wasn’t very pleased with it, that’s  a business decision he had to  make and I respect that.”
Rivet said he has maintained contact with several of his former teammates here. And last night he went out to dinner with Evgeni Nabokov.
*****And that  gives me the hook to pass along a story that Drew Remenda told a little while ago. During the broadcast, Remenda had been critical of a couple plays by Dan Boyle. Then came the text message: “Get off No. 22’s ass.”
It was from Nabokov and the two kept the exchange going for several minutes.

 

San Jose Mercury News 1

Are the 49ers about to lose Harbaugh to Miami, and $7-8M a year?

They met for 6.5 hours today, and there seemed to be a deal in place for Jim Harbaugh to sign on as the 49ers’ next head coach.
All Harbaugh had to do was sign the paper. But he told 49ers owner Jed York and GM Trent Baalke that he had to at least listen to what Miami owner Steve Ross had to offer.
And that’s about as close to Harbaugh as the 49ers might ever get.
There are multiple reports that the Dolphins are set to offer Harbaugh a mind-bogglingly massive deal averaging $7M to $8M a year, which would possibly top Bill Belichick as the No. 1 deal among all NFL coaches.
Ross, who flew out from Florida, is due to meet with Harbaugh tomorrow morning.
The 49ers, according to an NFL source, are prepared to offer Harbaugh about $5M per over five years.
And if Harbaugh gets that mega-offer from Miami, the source said, the 49ers are unlikely to go dollar-for-dollar and would be prepared to move on from Harbaugh.
This should come to a head around noon tomorrow.
To that end, an NFL source indicated that York and Baalke already have had initial discussions with fired Denver coach Josh McDaniels. They’ve already interviewed Raiders OC and presumed future HC Hue Jackson.

Other possible interviews: Rams OC Pat Shurmur, NY Jets OC Brian Schottenheimer and former Ravens coach Brian Billick.
None of those names will do much to placate most 49ers fans, who were eagerly anticipating the addition Harbaugh, the hottest coaching commodity to hit the market in years.
York, after all, was the one who said money would be no object in hiring a coach to replace Mike Singletary and a new GM. He promoted Baalke from within, and hoped that would set the stage for a Harbaugh hiring.
If it’s Baalke and not Harbaugh… there will be reason for discontent, and one question should be asked: Shouldn’t York have known from the outset that Harbaugh could get north of $6M per?
Pete Carroll, Harbaugh’s great rival, got more than $6M last year with Seattle and many presumed that Harbaugh would inevitably get a deal greater than that.
According to a source, everything went smoothly during the face-to-face discussions between Harbaugh and the 49ers today. He and Baalke meshed well and the money terms were being negotiated with agent David Dunn.
Then Harbaugh said he would talk to Ross, and the 49ers heard that the Dolphin offer could blow theirs away.
As always, there will be repercussions.