Someone over at ESPN may be a little bitter after being passed up for the San Francisco 49ers general manager job. Louis Riddick was an early candidate for the job and interviewed with the team on Tuesday, January 10 in New York. Back then, he publicly praised the 49ers job as one of the best openings in the NFL. He appears to have changed his tune.
On Thursday, Riddick went on the air and listed the 49ers as the worst of the six inherited situations by a new head coach. What changed? Riddick was not a candidate for the general manager job during the second round of interviews and John Lynch was hired instead of him. Also, Riddick was linked to New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and the 49ers hired Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan instead.
When Louis Riddick was a candidate for 49ers GM he called it the best job situation for a new head coach. Now he calls it the worst. pic.twitter.com/rtpxdVwLhb
— Michael David Smith (@MichaelDavSmith) February 9, 2017
What did Riddick have to say about the 49ers job back in early January? "What Jed York is setting up Scott [Van Pelt] is a situation where, now, you can really, literally, in every sense of the word, build it from the ground up," Riddick said. "Meaning that there has not been someone that has survived a regime change and there isn't someone who is coming in with a perceived lack of power compared to the person who survived which just breathes mistrust and that's one of the things that really kills this relationship when you have teams that are really falling on hard times anyways. Usually, it's really that breach of trust and inability to work together.
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"So what [Jed York] has done now and he has already stated is the fact that, look, 'I really want to look ahead and just start over from scratch where you have two people that share philosophical commonalities and actually like working with one another. And then they can go ahead and just really set the direction of this football organization and that's something that coaches are looking for, something that GMs are looking for – an ability to work on the same level as the head coach or the head coach with the GM and really build the thing from the ground up. And that is something that no other situation right now is offering.
"That's not to say that the roster doesn't need a lot of work because it does, but you're starting off with a relationship that gives you the best chance to succeed."
Now, it's possible that Riddick does not see the Shanahan and Lynch pairing as a good fit. That's fine because he is paid to give his opinion. It's just such a drastic change from his original opinion and an opinion that differs greatly from other members of the media who have graded the Shanahan hiring among the best of the six teams that had openings.