The 49ers have received some flak for conducting a coach and G.M. search without the involvement of senior football executives and/or high-level football consultants. The Colts may be getting more of the same.
Per a league source, owner Jim Irsay will be making the G.M. hire on his own.
As a result, the current thinking is that Irsay will lean toward promoting Jimmy Raye III in lieu of finding someone from outside the building, for several reasons. First, Irsay already knows Raye and is comfortable with him. Second, Raye likely would be more inclined to try to make it work with coach Chuck Pagano than an outsider would be.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, it will be easier for Irsay to put Raye and Pagano on equal footing from an accountability standpoint. If they fail, Irsay presses the reset button and starts over. If, in contrast, Irsay made a big splash by hiring someone from the outside, then that G.M. would surely survive the firing of Pagano -- making it harder right from the get go to get the two men on the same page.
So why is Irsay engaging in a seemingly traditional search if Raye is the guy? Think back to the 49ers in 2011, who interviewed multiple outsiders before giving the job to Trent Baalke. The process of screening external candidates legitimizes the internal candidate who gets the job, creating the impression that we won some sort of a contest.