When 49ers general manager Trent Baalke brought Chip Kelly aboard as head coach, he insisted he and Kelly were on the same page.
Though Baalke and former head coach Jim Harbaugh had a falling out, Baalke tried to assure reporters that he and Kelly would be able to work well together. Even when it comes to the evaluation of draft prospects, Baalke insisted he and Kelly were “looking for the same thing.”
But recently, some are speculating that Baalke and Kelly already are having trouble. If true, it could be bad news for a 49ers organization that has seemed dysfunctional the past two-plus years.
Brian Baldinger, a former player who now works for the NFL Network and has ties to the Eagles, reported recently that, “I already hear there’s problems in the building between Chip and Baalke.”
This week, Matt Barrows, who covers the 49ers for the Sacramento Bee, noted that “you have to first consider the source” when evaluating that report, noting that Baldinger – who does preseason Eagles game – works for a team that has been talking about Kelly’s problems in Philadelphia for quite a while now. Wrote Barrows: “One probably should take anything the Hatfields say about the McCoys with a grain of salt.” Barrows wrote that he'd recently seen Baalke and Kelly together at Stanford's pro day and they appeared to be getting along very well.
Mike Florio of NBC’s Pro Football Talk recently wrote nearly the same thing, pointing out that he’s waiting for a Bay Area reporter to report there are problems brewing between Baalke and Kelly to believe that friction already has developed.
Wrote Florio: “It seems too early for problems to arise, especially since Kelly is smart enough to realize that he needs to conduct himself differently than he did in Philadelphia.”
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And, added Florio, if problems do surface, then it would be time for 49ers CEO Jed York to step in and “clunk heads together and get guys on the same page.”
