{"id":684637,"date":"2026-01-17T17:40:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/684637\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T17:40:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:40:35","slug":"nfl-coaching-news-chargers-fire-greg-roman-echoes-49ers-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/684637\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Coaching News: Chargers fire Greg Roman, echoes 49ers debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re a San Francisco 49ers fan who heard the Los Angeles Chargers news, you may be saying, \u201cIt finally happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

And those are the coaching changes. Offensive coordinator Greg Roman has been relieved of duties<\/a>, and the search for a replacement is on.<\/p>\n

Since this is a San Francisco 49ers site, you might be asking, \u201cOk, why are we talking about this here?\u201d<\/p>\n

Because the Chargers\u2019 head coach is Jim Harbaugh, who previously held the same title with the 49ers, and the offensive coordinator under him during that tenure was none other than Roman.<\/p>\n

In Harbaugh\u2019s first year, 49ers fans were shocked at how much better the offense could be. This was after a year of Mike Singletary, Jimmy Raye II, and whoever else Singletary could find willing to work with the team. So better is a bit misleading; it showed how bad the 49ers were.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Roman had fans. Players seemed to respond to him as well, giving him nicknames like the \u201cevil genius\u201d and \u201cmad scientist<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t mean the 49ers were the greatest offense in the league, but competence was better than what fans had been subjected to. In the middle of the second year, Roman helped develop an offense on the fly for Colin Kaepernick, who took over for Alex Smith midseason. The offense utilized the pistol formation \u2014 something Kaepernick was familiar with in college \u2014 and the read option.<\/p>\n

It looked good, despite the cracks.<\/p>\n

Those cracks came as the games went on. Blunders like the option pitch<\/a>. Larger blunders like the Super Bowl loss in the 2012 season, when the final four offensive plays made that season\u2019s Great Disappointment. Fans may remember Kaepernick\u2019s failed fade more than the power outage.<\/p>\n

Harbaugh continued to back his guy<\/a> as the pitchforks came out.<\/p>\n

Despite Harbaugh\u2019s backing, Roman continued falling out of favor with the fans and the general manager\u2019s daughter. I\u2019m not kidding, then-GM Trent Baalke\u2019s daughter Cass posted this following a brutal Thanksgiving loss to the Seahawks.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Was Roman a reason for the 49ers mutually parting ways with Jim Harbaugh? Who knows. All there has been are rumors. Rumors that the coaching staff was ready to move on from Colin Kaepernick, rumors that Jim Tomsula did Jim Tomsula things. Nothing concrete.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Roman was trending downward. Whether that\u2019s a fault of Kaepernick or not is up to you. If you think Roman has been scapegoated for the Chargers\u2019 season, it\u2019s not the first time the scapegoat card has been thrown his way. That same narrative has been told for several teams: he\u2019s been let go by the Buffalo Bills midseason (after a game where his offense scored 31 points) and resigned from the Baltimore Ravens following a wild-card loss.<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to the Chargers. Harbaugh steadfastly backed Roman when fans were turning sour on his offense in San Francisco, but clearly didn\u2019t have as much patience in Los Angeles. Would this have changed anything had Harbaugh done this back in 2012? Who knows. One of the issues with the 49ers\u2019 offense wasn\u2019t the playcalling (oh, it was bonehead at times, mind you), but the terrible clock management made it so that Harbaugh could make the final play call. I doubt that system changes if the 49ers showed Roman the door.<\/p>\n

But those of you pleading for the 49ers to get Roman out before Harbaugh\u2019s untimely exit\u2014ahem, \u201cmutual parting of ways\u201d\u2014now you get some closure. Jim Harbaugh\u2019s offensive coordinator has been let go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019re a San Francisco 49ers fan who heard the Los Angeles Chargers news, you may be saying,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,7,6,1161,252,4030,2624,2623],"class_list":["post-684637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco-49ers","tag-49ers","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-san-francisco-49ers-history","tag-sanfrancisco","tag-sanfrancisco49ers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115911670269984009","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}