Few Bay Area sports executives in the 21st century got pilloried by us in the sports media more than 49ers CEO Jed York and his president, Paraag Marathe.
(That’s with apologies to the Irving G. Thalberg Lifetime Achievement Award winner of Bay Area Sports Executive Most Likely to Be Pilloried, former Warriors owner Chris Cohan.
Nobody beats Cohan.)
Jed and Paraag were close, though.
So much so, that we all did our pillorying by first name only.
You said “Jed”, and you knew here was the privileged rich kid who was handed a prized NFL franchise, and proceeded to fire the only winning coach they’d had since George Seifert, for no seemingly good reason. He drove it into the ditch, and the wheels were spinning.
You said “Paraag”, and you knew here was the bean-counting MBA with zero pro sports experience handed the keys to the future of the 49ers — with scant evidence that he knew what he was doing.
Flash forward to March, 2018.
Jed and Paraag are looking much, much, much better.
It started with Jed parting ways, finally, with toxic general manager Trent Baalke.
It moved on to Jed making an out-of-the-box hire in FOX commentator, former Stanford star and Pro Footballl Hall of Fame candidate John Lynch.
It moved on to Jed hiring the brightest offensive mind this side of Sean McVay, on-the-rise youngster Kyle Shanahan.
Look what those hires netted him: Bill Belichick traded Jimmy Garoppolo, maybe the hottest young QB in the game, to the 49ers, in large part because of his respect for Shanahan and Lynch. Richard Sherman, potentially a significant add to the defense and to the locker room, said he visited with the 49ers first because of his respect for Lynch and Shanahan.
Two big-time names and players, attracted by Jed’s prized GM and head coach.
Meanwhile, Paraag was tasked with making sure Jimmy G was the 49ers’ long-term answer at QB, contractually. Instead of hostile negotiations, or stalled tactics, or falling back on the franchise tag, Paraag drew up a five-year deal that paid Garoppolo more money than any previous NFL QB contract — and yet still left the 49ers cap room space in the future.
He did it all by Valentine’s Day, thus establishing an air of stability in a franchise craving same.
Then, sitting face-to-face with Sherman on Saturday, Paraag concocted a deal that is so team-friendly, players around the NFL are saying Sherman got swindled. The beauty of the deal is that Sherman doesn’t feel that way. He thinks he’s ready to earn a lot of money in the deal, if he meets all his incentives. If he does, the 49ers will consider that a win, because his play on the field will be a huge part of potential winning efforts.
Jed and Paraag — look at these two. They rode out some storms, including verbal storms from our very own radio show. And now they have the 49ers, perceptually, back on the NFL’s front burner.
Funny how life works sometimes. Let’s keep following that bouncing ball.
