The discussions and speculation about what the 49ers could get for coach Jim Harbaugh in trade for the final year of Harbaugh’s contract overlooks one key point.
What if Harbaugh doesn’t want to be traded?
Harbaugh holds more cards in this looming drama than he’s getting credit for. If he doesn’t like the idea of joining a new team that will be hamstrung by the loss of one or more draft picks, he can set his jaw and/or apply whatever other cliché he chooses and tell the 49ers he’ll continue to remain on the job until he’s released from his contract.
It’s equal parts Costanza showing up for work at Play Now and Costanza trying to convince the parents of his dead fiancée that he has a house in the Hamptons. Harbaugh makes it clear he’ll coach the 49ers for 2015, and the only way the 49ers will be able to keep that from happening will be to fire him or let him walk away without compensation.
That may sound a little far fetched. But it also sounds like precisely the thing Harbaugh would be inclined to do if the 49ers try to hold his new team hostage with draft picks Harbaugh would prefer to have available.