There’s a growing list of 49ers players who have come out and voiced their support of Chip Kelly.
Torrey Smith, Joe Staley, Jeremy Kerley and Vance McDonald have all gone on record as saying they want their head coach to stay in 2017, despite the 2-13 record. Carlos Hyde, on the other hand, told Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio he only worries about his job.
As Jed York gets ready to make yet another seismic organizational change, 49ers radio broadcaster Tim Ryan does not exactly know if the team’s CEO will listen to what the players are saying.
“I don’t know how much Jed and the guys, the decision-makers are meeting with leadership on the team,” Ryan said. “In terms of who the leaders are, the core leaders, and how much they’re talking about those things. But ultimately the owner — I mean cost benefit analysis, is there hope being provided for the investors? For the fans, for the faithful. Is this team getting better? I mean there’s a lot of things to go through here in the next couple of weeks.
“I mean, it’s obviously been a challenge. But I really have no idea at this point where this thing — we get here next Monday, nothing would surprise, one way or the other.”
Ryan, who has been critical of some of the coaching staff’s decisions this season, went on to praise Kelly in one area in particular: red-zone play-calling.
“I’ll tell you one thing, though, (red-zone) play-calling — where Chip Kelly is at his best and I think we saw it against the Rams, and we’ve seen it throughout the year,” Ryan said. “Now, they haven’t been down in scoring position nearly enough. But when they are, and the coaches are right in terms of the game-planning and the play-calling and the adjustments and some of the things they do down there to ID things, and the execution of the players — they’re at their best in the red zone. There is no doubt about it.”