Jim Harbaugh has had success everywhere he’s coached, but one of his former players was not impressed with their time together.
Brandon Jacobs, the retired running back who spent time playing for Harbaugh’s 49ers in 2012, left San Francisco not thinking highly of Harbaugh.
“Jim, I had a lot of respect for Jim when I was there – before I got to know him,” Jacobs said on CBS Sports Radio. “I enjoyed my time there, but we didn’t see eye-to-eye. I knew a little bit more about football than what they led on.”
Jacobs said Harbaugh didn’t have much of a grasp of the Xs and Os of coaching and that the assistants deserved more of the credit.
“Going somewhere where they don’t have route conversions into certain coverages was just absurd,” Jacobs said. “They’re just running routes in the defense, getting people killed. Size and strength is what they had, and that’s why they won. Let’s be real. They had great assistant coaches, but Jim didn’t know what he was doing. Jim had no idea. Jim is throwing slants into Cover-2 safeties, getting people hurt. That guy knew nothing, man.”
Jacobs was injured at the start of his 49ers tenure, a bench warmer once he got healthy, and eventually got suspended by the team and then released for complaining about his playing time on social media. So it’s not exactly a surprise that he doesn’t have fond memories of his time with Harbaugh.