Freakonomics Radio - 350. How to Stop Being a Loser

Episode Date: September 20, 2018

The San Francisco 49ers, one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world, also used to be one of the best. But they’ve been losing lately — a lot — and one of their players launched a controversy by taking a knee during the national anthem. So why is everyone there so optimistic? To find out, we speak with the team’s owner, head coach, general manager, and star players, including their new $137.5 million quarterback. (Ep. 2 of “The Hidden Side of Sports” series.)

He breaks through the finishing tape with his mouth wide open. Three minutes, 59.4 seconds, shattering the four-minute mile. They didn't tell Dr. King, well, Dr. King, you can protest on Tuesday. You protest when you feel like protesting. Sports has a social impact that is way, way bigger than its economic impact. I'm white in the face. I can barely breathe. I'm just exhausted.

They said, hey, you are blowing up on Twitter. You're blowing up on Instagram. You cannot be afraid to fail. Pretend for just a second that you own a National Football League team. How awesome would that be? For starters, you would be really rich, but also you'd have a piece of the most successful sports league in history. And that makes you part of the fabric of America. People arrange their schedules to watch NFL games. They are so passionate about

your product that they routinely dress up like your employees. Think about that. You ever seen anybody wearing a UPS uniform who doesn't work for UPS? This passion translates into millions of eyeballs and billions of dollars. So however rich you started out, now you're getting even richer. Can you imagine how great that would be? Or better than imagining, let's hear from someone who actually does own an NFL team. My name is Jed York. And let's say this team happens to be one of the most successful and valuable franchises ever. I'm the CEO of the San Francisco 49ers. Weiss has just set a Super Bowl record with 12 catches.

He's in motion. Montana. Touchdown, John Taylor. In the 1980s and 90s, the San Francisco 49ers won five Super Bowls. Jed York is 38 years old. The team has been in his family for many years. I rotated through every single department, and my first gig was really in the equipment room,

like learning how to sew nameplates onto the jerseys and doing that stuff. Okay, you're the CEO, I realize that's your title, that's your operational thing. Are you the owner and owner? How does the ownership work? So my family owns 90 plus percent of the team. And you know, it's split between my siblings and my parents and I, my mother is the controlling owner of the team. As York was moving up from the equipment room to the CEO's office, the team's glory days were receding. They did make it to another Super Bowl six years ago, but they lost. It's hard to lose a Super Bowl and come back and try to refocus.

Indeed, it was hard to refocus. The next few seasons ranged from mediocre to horrible. York did what NFL owners typically do in these cases. He fired the coach again and again. Some fans thought York should have been fired. They rented a plane, flew it over the stadium with that very message. York's response was pretty sensible. I own this football team.

You don't dismiss owners. Now, imagine at the same time all that was happening, this was also happening. San Francisco 49ers quarterback knelt during the national anthem. Colin Kaepernick's protest against racial injustice seems to be gaining traction. And that led to this. Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, get that son of a bitch off the

field right now. Out. He's fired. He's fired. Amidst all this chaos on and off the field, Jed York hit the reset button hard. The 49ers started the 2017 season with a new coach, a new general manager, and a roster full of new players. They began the year with pretty high hopes. After all, they are the San Francisco 49ers. San Francisco has won Super Bowl XXIII. Those high hopes turned out to be misplaced. Largest margin of victory over the 49ers going all the way back to 1980. And the new coach was miserable. When you lose a game, a lot of noise happens.

When you lose two, a ton happens. Usually three is like Armageddon. Try nine. Nine straight losses to start what was supposed to be your turnaround season. Then you've got the president of the United States telling you to fire your son-of-a-bitch employees, and your very sport is increasingly thought of as too violent and brutal for the modern world. You sure you still want to own a football team? Today on Freakonomics Radio, despite some headwinds, NFL football is still one of the most popular commodities in sports history. We all know what it's like to

consume this commodity, but what's it take to produce it? We recently spent a couple days inside the 49ers complex talking to everyone, ownership and senior management, the head coach and general manager, and of course the players, including the $137 million quarterback. What's up guys, I'm Jimmy Garoppolo and you're listening to Freakonomics Radio. And we learned a lot. For instance, how the sports industry is unlike other industries. So you actually need some level of collusion just to make the product work, right? We learned how winning is everything, but that losing could be pretty great, too.

When we lose, we actually get gifted better draft picks. We'll hear how an NFL team makes its money, besides football. We went straight from Monster Truck into Taylor Swift. And you'll hear what football players do when they're not playing, practicing, or lifting weights. I know it's a lot, the hair, the bod, when you're staring at a demigod.

What can I say except you're welcome. From Stitcher and Dubner Productions, this is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything. Here's your host, and human potential. Athletes were told like their legs would fall off if they ran fast enough to run under four minutes a mile. When we first started thinking about this sports series, we knew we'd want to spend one episode going deep on a single team, preferably before their season began. Not only do they have more time to talk then, but that's also when everyone is still optimistic and tied for first place and uninjured. As for which sport, we figured we'd go straight to the top of the sports pyramid, as the sports economist Victor Matheson described it.

So the biggest league in the world in terms of revenue generated is the NFL, and the NFL generates something like $14, $15 billion a year. We also thought it'd be fun to focus on a team that had a strange season the year before, like one of the strangest seasons ever, a season that ran from absolute despair to something approaching euphoria. This set of criteria brought us to the San Francisco 49ers. What do you know? All right, we're good. Yeah, great. So just what is this big tunnel here? Where are we? Okay, so this is the underbelly of the stadium. In May, we visited the team's complex in Santa Clara, California. They'd just begun their preseason practices,

which are technically called OTAs or organized team activities. Ready, set, go. Clear the base. Stop. The place was incredibly busy, considering the season wouldn't begin for another few months. It was also incredibly upbeat. To understand why the entire building was so enthusiastic about the 2018 season, you have to understand what they went through in 2017. And to understand that, it helps to go back to 2011, the start of the era

of coach Jim Harbaugh. By this point, the 49ers had not been to the playoffs in eight years. So Jim was at Stanford when we hired him. That, again, is 49ers owner and CEO Jed York. And Jim is a guy that is just a huge personality. It was a personality that Harbaugh was not shy to show in public. God, personally, I think that's a bunch of crap. And I think with Jim, you know, he can certainly rub somebody the wrong way, but he's not worried about, you know, I'm going to make sure everybody gets along.

Like, he has one focus in mind, and that's, you know, how do I win? 33-17 is the final score as Harbaugh is a winner in his first game as a pro coach. Harbaugh turned the team around immediately. They had three excellent seasons, including that losing appearance in the Super Bowl against a Baltimore Ravens team whose coach was, bizarrely, Harbaugh's brother. It's the Harbaugh Bowl. Jim and John Harbaugh, Ravens and Niners, two of the best teams in the league. Describe to me how much it hurts to lose a Super Bowl.

You know, it's weird because we've lost NFC Championship games before and it's weirdly more easy to lose the Super Bowl because you can say, you know, we didn't have our best game, we didn't do this. So there's no ifs, ands, or buts. There's no what ifs.

Not everyone in the 49ers building is as sanguine as owner Jed York. Losing the Super Bowl? Oh man, it sucked. It was, oh, that's like the worst day of my life. Thanks for bringing that up. You're welcome. That's Joe Staley. I am the left tackle for the San Francisco 49ers. I've been on the team for, this will be my 12th season coming up, so only played here in San Francisco. Right. And you're easily the longest tenured veteran here. And the best looking, yes. Best looking, yeah. Your nose, I have to say, leans right. It leans to the right. I've been broken a couple times. Staley has long been one of the best left tackles in the league.

His primary job is to protect the quarterback on passing plays, which means in addition to being the longest tenured 49er, Staley is also one of the largest. Six foot six, I'm about 295, three and a half. 295. He's also known as being one of the goofiest. Hakuna Matata. What a wonderful phrase. Hakuna Matata. What a wonderful phrase.

Hakuna Matata. Ain't no passing craze. It means no worries for the rest of your days. Staley also hosts a no-budget web series called The Joe Show, filmed in the 49ers locker room. And our first guest is my eighth favorite player on the football team, Dakota Watson, everybody. Let's go. It pays to stay loose if you're an NFL player.

It is a fairly ruthless business. That 49ers team that went to the Super Bowl six years ago? Staley is one of just two players still on the team out of 53. That's how much turnover there can be on an NFL roster, especially when a team has a bad stretch. And the 49ers had a really bad stretch. The season after the Super Bowl loss, they won just eight games against eight losses. Coach Jim Harbaugh, whose idiosyncrasies were tolerable during the winning seasons, had worn out his welcome. We just couldn't get to a place where, you know, either

side was willing to continue to move forward. On to a new coach and a new season with even worse results. Five wins, 11 losses. Then another new coach for the next season with an even worse outcome. Two wins, 14 losses. That coach was also fired, along with the general manager who makes personnel decisions. This left Jed York as the primary target of the growing ill will. Here he is at a press conference right after the disastrous 2016 season. Jed, you dismissed your general manager and coach because they didn't reach certain performance standards.

That's part of it. Okay. Let's stick to that part. Why shouldn't you be dismissed or reassigned for the same reasons? Look, again, nothing I'm going to say is going to be satisfactory. Say something. And that's when York said this. I own this football team.

You don't dismiss owners. No one's happy when an NFL team is losing, the players, the fans, even, as you heard, the journalists. But paradoxically, there's one constituency that has reason to be somewhat less unhappy. Who's that? The ownership. Here's something important to know about the National Football League and the other big American sports leagues. Every team in every league, of course, wants to win, but they don't have to win to be financially successful. Consider the NFL. The league is essentially a coalition of the 32 teams. The commissioner serves at the owner's behest and promotes their interests. It is essentially a cartel with membership by invitation only. Unlike the big soccer leagues around the world, there is no promotion into or

relegation out of American sports leagues. Unlike corporations, these leagues don't face much real competition from upstarts or rivals. So first of all, we see the leagues pretty actively try to crush their competition. That, again, is the sports economist Victor Matheson. We had the NFL drive the USFL out of business in 1985, at least partially through nefarious means, partially through fairly incompetent management of the USFL, probably led at most by the owner of the New Jersey USFL team, of course, Donald Trump. You might think an economist would oppose this lack of competition. You might think he'd consider this behavior downright collusive.

Sports is really interesting in that you actually need some level of collusion between teams just to make the product work. Right. So this is not this is not Apple and Samsung. Right. Apple really does want to drive Samsung out of business so they can grab the whole mobile phone market. And Samsung wants to do the same thing to Apple. But the New York Yankees don't want to drive the Boston Red Sox out of business because they need someone to play. And you need to figure out how you're going to run your league so that you can make a good, entertaining product. The NFL's product is certifiably entertaining and, therefore, certifiably lucrative. Importantly, this lucre is equally shared among the 32 teams.

Local revenues vary, but every team gets a one-thirty-second cut of the national revenue that includes money from TV rights, sponsorships, licensing, and merchandise sales. Last year, the NFL's total national revenue was more than $8 billion, with each team receiving more than $250 million. A lot of that money will get paid out in player salaries. For the 2018 season, there's a salary cap of $177.2 million per team, and owners have to spend at least $157.7 million. But don't forget, there are local revenues coming in as well, including ticket sales. And that $250 million check from the league,

that's your share whether you win every game, half your games, or none. When Jed York's grandfather bought the San Francisco 49ers in 1977, he paid $17 million. You know, obviously the team is probably worth a little bit more than $17 million today. That is true. Forbes estimates the 49ers' value at $3 billion, making it the 10th most valuable sports team in the world. That's without having won a Super Bowl since 1995.

And that's with winning two games in 2016. What would happen if a soccer team in the English Premier League did that? They'd get relegated to a lower league and their finances would crumble. The Premier League would give them what's called a parachute payment to help them avoid bankruptcy, but they'd have to sell off their best players. An NFL team that wins just two games, meanwhile, still gets that $250 million check from the home office. I actually joke with my English Premier friends. That's Al Guido, the 49ers president. Not only do when we lose, we actually get gifted better draft picks. They actually get relegated down and have to try to come back up.

So the football business, I mean, I would love to be an NFL owner because it's kind of a closed model, right? I mean, if you're in, you literally can't lose. I mean, can you lose money in the NFL? Sure. I mean, if you're one of the lower revenue tier clubs, but it's hard. To your point, it's pretty hard. I asked Guido to describe his duties as club president. I oversee everything non-football. So if you think about the sales, marketing, G&A functions of the team, and the general administrative, so finance, human resources, legal, insurance, all of those things, land development.

Land development in particular is a big piece of the 49ers' value proposition, as it is for many sports franchises. It's no coincidence that so many team owners made their money in real estate. This includes Jed York's late grandfather. He was one of the first people to really take, you know, the downtown to suburbia. And he really enclosed a shopping mall and built a great empire there. On one level, owning an NFL team is a real estate play. Yes, the athletes are necessary to carry out the game, but athletes come and go. The stadium

is the constant. And it's a cash cow on at least three dimensions, as a stage set for the lucrative TV contracts, as a venue for live events, including, of course, the football games, and as a sponsorship opportunity. In 2014, the 49ers built and moved into a $1.3 billion state-of-the-art stadium. It's now called Levi's Stadium, after the jeans maker paid $220 million for a 10-year naming deal. Some of that money goes to the 49ers' new hometown, Santa Clara, which is in Silicon Valley. It's about an hour south of San Francisco,

where the 49ers had played since 1946. Jed York again. We would have loved to have stayed in the city of San Francisco. We looked at over 85 sites in the Bay Area. There's a lot of work that goes into it from an environmental standpoint, from a governmental standpoint. When it was announced that you were going to build the stadium down here, what was the general public response?

It wasn't a very positive response because people wanted us to stay in the city. Right. And what were you portrayed as? Greedy? As not loyal? Probably more than not loyal because in terms of greedy, there was very, very little public equity put into the building. A modern stadium like Levi's can generate a lot more revenue than an old stadium, thanks to luxury suites and the willingness of fans to pre-purchase season tickets. The 49ers, like most teams, don't just sell you the tickets. You first need to buy what's called a personal seat license, which then allows you to buy the tickets. You first need to buy what's called a personal seat license, which then allows you to

buy the tickets. When Levi's Stadium opened, those licenses sold for $2,000 to $80,000 per seat, depending on location. Al Guido again. About 95 to 96 percent of the building is sold out on season tickets. And how's that rate compared to other NFL stadiums? Is that about typical or a little high? Oh, it's very high. It is. Very high. Yeah, we are in the top quartile in team revenues inside of the NFL. Keep in mind that NFL teams only have eight regular season home games per season, with a couple preseason games and, if they're lucky, a playoff game or two. That is not a very efficient use of an asset as expensive as a brand new high-tech stadium.

But don't worry, the 49ers are active landlords too. According to Forbes, Levi's Stadium in its first three years hosted more non-NFL events than any other new stadium. Here's Bob Lang, the 49ers VP of Communications, while giving us a stadium tour back in May. Yeah, we went straight from Monster Truck into Taylor Swift last weekend. And then now, as soon as Taylor Swift got off the field, they are putting down Sod because we've got a soccer match coming up shortly. So from a business perspective, the 49ers of the mid-2000 teens were doing quite well, monetizing their beautiful new real estate investment, taking in their steady share of the NFL's billions.

The only problem was that their actual football team stank. Over three seasons, from 2014 to 2016, they won a total of just 15 games. The New England Patriots won 14 games in 2016 alone, while the 49ers were winning just two games that year. That was also the season that the 49ers quarterback became the talk of not just the NFL, but the entire country. Colin Kaepernick was just a few years removed from having led the 49ers to the Super Bowl, but as the team's fortunes fell, so did his. He was benched, then reinstalled as a starter, and then benched again.

He asked to be traded, but the team refused. This sort of controversy is standard issue on NFL teams. But then Kaepernick launched an entirely non-standard controversy. It began after a spate of high-profile police shootings of African Americans. During the national anthem that's played just before every NFL game, Kaepernick sat on the bench rather than standing along the sidelines with his teammates. He later shifted his protest from sitting to kneeling during the anthem. He said he wasn't interested in standing up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color. There's people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable.

Cops are getting paid leave for killing people. That's not right. As you are probably aware, this turned into a very big deal. Colin Kaepernick's protest against racial injustice seems to be gaining traction. Other players around the league began kneeling in solidarity with Kaepernick's protest against racial injustice seems to be gaining traction. Other players around the league began kneeling in solidarity with Kaepernick. The anthem protests became a political football, turning the actual football into a sideshow and to some degree, a casualty. A slip in the NFL's TV ratings was attributed, in part at least, to the anthem protests. Although to be fair, NFL ratings were down much less than most TV shows. Kaepernick himself was ultimately released by the 49ers, and he wasn't picked up

by any other NFL team despite having strong career numbers. Kaepernick accused the league of blackballing him, and he filed a collusion case, which as of today is still unsettled. I asked 49ers owner Jed York about the Kaepernick controversy. When you look at, you know, African-Americans specifically and folks of racial minority and sort of police shootings, there are some things that really aren't good in our country. Collin probably took a different approach than I would have taken, but he certainly brought attention to the matter. And I understand where

people were upset that he, you know, took an action during the national anthem. But when I look at where Colin started of sitting down during the national anthem, he changed his position to doing something that it's hard for me to see taking a knee. Like there's, if you can come up with a community or society where taking a knee is a disrespectful act, like by all means, show me. So, I mean, I feel like he tried to modify his position to be as respectful as possible during a very, very, you know, sacrosanct moment during a professional football game.

And I think the narrative sort of spun out of control. And then you've got something that five years ago, no one could have predicted. Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, get that son of a bitch off the field right now? Talk about that, your communication with the White House, if there was any, and how that affected you. So we didn't have any direct communication with the White House. The NFL legal office may have. We didn't. The position that we took was whether you're for against somebody taking a knee during the national anthem, you have the constitutional right to be

able to do that. Now, that doesn't mean that you are immune from having backlash because of your actions, but you have every right to make that action and take that action. Now there's a lawsuit alleging collusion among owners. Tell me what you can or do know about that. I mean, it's really hard to get into something that's an ongoing lawsuit. I know for us, you know, Colin was kneeling before he regained his starting position with us. So, I mean, that had nothing to do what his political stance was. So he was not starting.

Then the protest started. Then he started again. Yes. But did he finish out the season then as a starter? He finished the season as a starter with us. So that would seem to be evidence that there was no effort by the 49ers to diminish his professional abilities, right? Positive opportunities. I certainly don't believe that there were.

And we had no negative conversations with other teams saying, don't sign Colin. Like that wasn't, we wouldn't do that with Colin. We wouldn't do that with anybody else. Were you deposed? I was not. In the collusion? Was anybody from the Niners deposed in the collusion case? I don't believe so.

Between the Kaepernick saga and their worst season in many years, the 49ers were ready for big changes. Just hiring a new coach every year wasn't working out. So they realized... What might be best is to start from scratch and do a full reboot because doing half of it each time wasn't what was giving us the right answer. That's Parag Marathe. And so the best way to do it is to build it up from the bottom again. Marathe is unofficially Jed York's right-hand man. And officially?

I am president of 49ers Enterprises and EVP of Football Operations. Marate has been with the 49ers since 2001. Before that, he worked as a management consultant and at the sports agency IMG. His MBA is from Stanford, his undergrad degree from Berkeley, and he grew up nearby in Saratoga, the child of Indian immigrants. His dad was an engineer who, when Parag was 10, decided he wanted to start a family business. The American dream, right? Start a new business, and we put it to a family vote. My dad was gas station, my mom was party store,

my sister and I were pizza, so we bought a pizza restaurant. And you were eventually kind of running the place, I gather. I was running the place by the time I was 12 or 13. But it was fun. I had hired a lot of my friends. We all worked there and we managed the pizza restaurant. What labor laws? What child labor laws? Exactly. So I delivered pizzas too as a high school kid. So I know literally every street in Saratoga. In fact, if you gave me a home address, I would probably tell you the phone number or vice versa. Seriously. With the 49ers, Marate has been involved in everything from contract negotiations to

salary cap management to the analytics department. When the team bottomed out in 2016, he and Jed York acknowledged that they needed to hire yet another new coach, the team's fourth in four years, but they also needed a new general manager. That's the person responsible for deciding which players to get and which ones to get rid of and what kind of contracts they could afford within the salary cap. They also realized they had to rethink the alliance between coach and GM to make sure they were rowing in the same direction? So we've done a lot of research on successful organizations and what made them work and what didn't. And one of the things that was of paramount importance is, first of all, having a head coach and a general manager that were in the same life cycle of their career. So one's not thinking about saving their jobs and one's not thinking about trying to prove themselves, right?

And another thing was, you have different structures across every club. Sometimes the GM's on top and the head coach is underneath. Sometimes it's the other way around. We wanted to set it up where they were partners and they complemented each other on what their respective skill sets would be. And then we went out and we looked at all sports and thought about, all right, what are the key attributes of a head coach that we're looking for? What are the key personality traits and the key sort of skill sets?

Same thing at a GM. So we gave each candidate a list of 10 skills of a head coach or a GM. And we said, we want you to rank these 1 to 10, not on how important they are, but on how good you are at them. And by the way, you have to be 1 at them and by the way you have to be 1 out of 10 on something and you have to be 10 out of 10 on something right and it wasn't the answers so much that we cared about as like how they arrived at it and how they talked about it afterwards we're some guys not able to put down a one so many guys did one two three four and then six way tie for five right because it couldn't be worse than anything, right?

And so it's just that conversation that they couldn't consciously allow themselves to be bad at something. But the 49ers eventually did find someone who knew his own limitations. I'm always assuming, all right, this bad thing's going to happen. What do we do to prepare ourselves?

And that is... All right, Kyle Shanahan, head coach, 49ers. Shanahan is only 38 and had never been a head coach, but he had been a wildly successful offensive coordinator for a few teams. And not unimportantly, he is the son of a wildly successful NFL head coach, Mike Shanahan. Now, growing up, you know, I was around football my whole life. Mike Shanahan won two Super Bowls as head coach of the Denver Broncos.

He was also the offensive coordinator for the 49ers back when they won their last Super Bowl, which meant that Kyle Shanahan went to high school here in the San Francisco area. In fact, when he was a kid, and this is apropos of nothing, but it's too cool to not tell you, when Kyle Shanahan was a kid, he would go for pizza at the pizzeria run by another kid, Parag Marate, the man who would eventually hire Shanahan to coach the 49ers. You've done your homework. In early 2017, as the 49ers were deciding to give Kyle Shanahan his first head coaching job, he was pretty busy as offensive coordinator of the Atlanta Falcons,

who were preparing to play in the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots. Parag Marate and Jed York, however, really wanted Shanahan's input on who they should hire as GM. They're like, can you meet with this GM? Can you meet with this guy? I'm like, no, I'm getting ready for a playoff game. I'm getting ready for the Super Bowl. And so it got very stressful for me. And then, out of the blue, Shanahan got a text from someone, a former NFL great who was now a football broadcaster and who was a huge fan of Kyle Shanahan.

I always thought he was one of those guys that was one step ahead of the competition. And that is... Okay, my name is John Lynch. For years I thought your actual first name was hard-hitting because it seemed like they could never say John Lynch without hard-hitting John Lynch. Lynch retired as an NFL player in 2008 and was now calling games for Fox. I had a good career going in the broadcast world, and they were great to me. And I loved every second of it.

But you missed the competition. I did. I did. You know, everybody, I think, at certain points at the year's end, you do a little self-evaluation and say, Oh, gosh, my life's really going well. I got a great family. I'm proud of my kids. I got a great marriage. Love and broadcasting. But what's my win-loss record? Yeah, exactly. And there was always a but that was a little unfulfilling. When Lynch heard that Kyle Shanahan had been offered the 49ers head coaching job, he called to congratulate him. And I had seen

something the day before that he was struggling finding someone he wanted to work with as a general manager. And I just kind of threw out there at the end of our conversation, I said, hey, you know, maybe I'd do it. And he was very polite about it. And he goes, if you already got a guy, just don't even worry about it. But I just want you to know I'd be very interested. And I went downstairs and I remember telling my parents who know John, because my dad coached him. And he's like, what did you have to say? And I was like, he said he wants to be a GM. My dad's like, oh, what do you think of that? I'm like, I think I really like that. And it took a lot of anxiety away because all I want is someone who loves football, who's smart and capable of doing it, and someone that you can work together with.

John Lynch, as GM, was a bit of a stretch. He'd never been a football coach or executive, but he had been a great player, and he was smart. He played his college football at Stanford. There was one more thing going for Lynch. He's just a presence. Parag Marathe again. He has such amazing presence. Youag Marathe again. He has such an amazing presence. You just, you be around, you're around him for half an hour and it makes you want to be a better version of yourself. And so it came to pass that in early 2017, a few weeks after firing their previous

head coach and general manager, the 49ers had their new leadership duo, an up-and-coming young coach and an inspiring first-time GM. Now all I had to do was get the kind of players who could win them some football games, like this guy. Solomon Thomas, I play defensive end for the San Francisco 49ers. Thomas was born in Chicago, then his family moved to Australia for several years, and then to Texas. He was a big kid, so naturally, in Texas. Someone was like, why aren't you playing football? And I was like, I really don't know what football is.

And so we signed up, did the Pop Warner football thing, and first practice, just going out there, was tackling this guy in front of me because I didn't know what to do. I didn't know you were supposed to tackle the guy with the ball. But Thomas figured out the game pretty quickly and was eventually recruited to play at Stanford. If you've begun to think there's a bit of a Stanford mafia within the 49ers organization, you might not be wrong.

It also might not be a total coincidence. In one of his first classes at Stanford, Thomas recognized an older guy sitting up front. And he was like, who's that? And he's like, oh crap, that's John Lynch. And like, kind of a little starstruck. Hard-hitting John Lynch, now in his 40s and in his broadcasting phase, had gone back to Stanford to complete his degree.

A couple years later, as the brand new GM of the 49ers, the first player Lynch drafted with the third overall pick was Solomon Thomas. It was just like a total dream come true. And he's like, this is your former classmate, John. Was it him or Shanahan who called you? John called me first and he said, hey, classmate. And then, yeah, it was pretty insane. Thomas was one of the key young players the 49ers were rebuilding their defense around.

The offense, meanwhile, that was Kyle Shanahan's specialty. The offense needed even more help, especially a quarterback. I mean, it's the toughest, to me, position in the world. And there's 32 teams and there isn't 32 people who can play that position at the level needed. I mean, if you look at the AFC, I think over the last 17 or 19 years, it's basically been three quarterbacks.

That's 49ers president Al Guido again. So it's Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, sprinkling a few Joe Flacos, and that's it. With Colin Kaepernick gone, the 49ers' best quarterback options were C.J. Bethard and Brian Hoyer, neither of whom were very good options. But Shanahan and John Lynch and the whole organization knew it'd be hard work to turn things around. And if there's anything Kyle Shanahan is really, really, really good at,

it's working hard. During the season, you know, Mondays, I'm usually in about 5.30 every day. I leave on a Monday at 11, on a Tuesday at midnight, on a Wednesday at midnight, on a Thursday at 9.30, at midnight on a Thursday at 9 30 and on Friday I leave at 2 30. Friday is like my weekend where I get home at about 3 30 and that's the night I kind of hang out with my kids. Saturday I'm in at 5 30 we usually are traveling somewhere or we have

meetings and a walk through I go home for two hours and go to the hotel. You spend the night at the team hotel on Saturdays? Yeah, everyone does. And then on Sundays, I'm over at the stadium very early in the morning. You hear these stories forever about coaches literally sleeping in their offices, working these hours that you described. I think anybody listening to this, those hours sound totally nuts. And my thought is always like, does it really have to be that? Like, for people who don't know the game or care about it, and they hear like,

wait a minute, you're a football coach. Why do you need to be working 18 hours? I don't, what are you doing? All right, well, just on a Monday, all right, as a head coach, I need to watch the game for myself, which is offense aside, defense aside, special teams.

It's rewind, fast forward, sideline copy. And so there's three clips before we get past one play on one side of the ball. Then I've got to watch it with the coaches. And then when that's done, I've got to get the whole team together. And I've got to watch certain clips of the team from a head coach standpoint. Anyways, it takes all Monday. It takes all Monday. And now we've got to start watching Seattle who we play that

next Sunday. For the next several minutes, Shanahan describes in exhausting detail the rest of the week. Well, I teach the pass game from eight to nine. Then we teach the run game from nine to 10. Then our special teams coach comes in from 10 to 1045 to teach special teams. Then we go out on the field and we have to walk through all the new stuff we learn then we come back in and we eat lunch then we go out and have a real practice now before tomorrow we got to go study third down we got to study short yardage goal line we got to draw out the plan put them on cards how we're going to practice tomorrow we only do red zone on thursday night so friday same process the 11 guys versus 11 guys it's infinite how many different things you can do.

And if one guy is off, the play doesn't work on either side of the ball. And if that play doesn't work, it could be a hurt quarterback, it could be a touchdown. That could be the reason you're telling your second grade daughter that she's moving next week. Yeah, there's not many other ways to do it i know it's embarrassing we're not doctors so repeat teachers and but like it's i don't try to explain to people much because it's laughable and has anybody ever tried has any coach ever said you know what maybe all those hours that we're working if we slept more we'd be sharper and try to make up for it that way. Has anybody ever tried a totally different approach?

Yeah, totally. And those are no longer coaching in the league. Yeah, guys, you would never know their name because they don't last long. And, I mean, it's okay if we're tired and we barely can function. We don't have to perform the play. It's us wearing our brains out all week to put our players in the best opportunity possible for them to be successful. Coming up after the break, just how successful was the 49ers turnaround effort? I mean, your wife hears the radio all day. She reads stuff.

Eventually you get home and everyone's been saying that their husband sucks so bad she wants to know why. But then, believe it or not, something magical happened. It's not like Jimmy was the savior, right? It's the whole team. That's coming right up. And if you want to hear the full, unedited interviews with the 49ers executives, coaches, players, etc., there are many hours of tape. Didn't make this episode. Sign up for Stitcher Premium. Just go to stitcherpremium.com slash Freakonomics and use the promo code Freakonomics to get one month free. In September of 2017, the iconic San Francisco 49ers franchise was ready for their renaissance. They had a new coach, new general manager,

many new players, a gorgeous and relatively new stadium, and seemingly all sorts of wind at their back. And then they played their first game. They got crushed by the Carolina Panthers, 23-3. Kyle's fine. This team will be fine. It's in good hands with John Lynch. Kyle's in good hands. They're young and new. They're going to get better as the season goes on. But things didn't get better. The 49ers lost again. Touchdown, Arizona! Cardinals win! And again. It is good, and the Colts have won it in overtime.

And again, and again. Six straight losses to open the season. Amazingly, the last five were all by three points or less. I mean, that's hard on a head coach. John Lynch, the rookie general manager, was worried about his rookie head coach, Kyle Shanahan. And I think a big part of my job the first year was being a psychologist to him. You've waited your whole life to do this, and now all of a sudden, in a historic fashion, we lost five games by three points or less. It had never been done in this league.

How should you interpret those five close losses? Were the 2017 San Francisco 49ers still catastrophically bad? Or were they really close to turning the corner? The next few games answered that question. Largest margin of victory over the 49ers, going all the way back to 1980. The 49ers had begun their supposed turnaround season 0-9. This affected everyone in the building, and their families, including Al Guido's 9-year-old daughter. So the kids will either make fun of my daughter, right, or if she wears a 49er, she'll be like,

49ers stink. You know, what's your dad doing type of thing. I mean, when you lose a game, a lot of noise happens. That's Coach Shanahan again. Not just from media members and talk show hosts, but from family members, from anybody. When you lose two, a ton happens. Usually three is like Armageddon. Try nine. And it happens to where, I mean, your wife hears the radio all day. She reads stuff. Eventually you get home and everyone's been saying that their husband sucks so bad. She wants to know why. And eventually you say, it wasn't me. It was this position. And she eventually says that to another wife. And that's how teams get torn apart. I've never lost that many games before in the season or over maybe my career. And so that was different.

That was defensive end Solomon Thomas. And here's the linebacker Malcolm Smith. No, it was miserable. It was miserable. And I actually wasn't playing. I was on injury reserve. Oh. So it was like...

Threw you out all last year. Helpless, yeah. I'd say I was taking it harder than some of the guys on the field because you're watching, you feel like you can't do anything. Joe Staley, the offensive lineman who sings, he was also hurt. Staley played through it, didn't miss a game, but he started talking about quitting football when the season was over. I was in year 11. I was on my sixth heavy coach.

We were, I think, at this time, like 0-7, and it was just like, you know, I had mental lapse of weakness there where I was just, you know, the adversity kind of got to me. Definitely super frustrating, not how we expected things to start. That is the fullback Kyle Juszczyk. But you'd be surprised just how positive things stayed around here. It was pretty incredible. Juszczyk, who played his college football at Harvard, was also hurt last season.

In the third game, he got a concussion. So we were playing the LA Rams, and we were on the goal line, and smacked my head with their linebacker, and just had a really, it was really weird. It was almost like a bell, like just ringing. I remember feeling like a tuning fork. I'm pretty shook up, but I'm sitting in the huddle, and I'm like, I'm definitely messed up, but do I sit down and wait for the trainer, or let's just run this next play, and then I'll figure it out after that. Well, it all happened so quickly, I stayed in, and I ran the next play, and it was the worst decision

um same thing ran into the linebacker and that one you know finally put me out where I was you know unconscious for a second and then had to you know get taken in by the trainers and all that kind of stuff wow you regret it sounds like you regret the decision second play definitely yeah I should have taken myself out. But things happen so quickly. How much of it is also just macho? There's a little bit of pride in there, which is stupid because there shouldn't be. That's changing, I gather, in the NFL? It definitely is changing.

There's no shame in taking yourself out in that situation. Your brain is way too important for this kind of stuff. And I think guys are starting to understand that a lot more. But it's still, I think, so ingrained in all of us that there's a little bit of that pride that still keeps guys in there. As Juszczyk was recuperating from his concussion, the 49ers' season kept getting worse.

And yet, he says, Kyle Shanahan managed to keep his 0-9 team from turning on each other or on themselves. Nobody was walking on eggshells here. We were still very confident that we were moving in the right direction. And, you know, every week Kyle would pull up some clips to show like we're making progress. I swear, guys, like just stick to it and it's going to turn around. I have to say, that just sounds like exactly the opposite of what lay people think about football coaches. We think, like, you could have a pretty good game, and then they call you and show you this is the block you missed and so on.

That definitely exists. And I've definitely been a part of that, too. But I almost feel like it's more of a kind of a new age thinking of this more positive feedback. And I know it definitely resonates with me. You know, I've never gotten much from a coach that's just screaming at me and telling me how terrible I am. I don't know. That just doesn't work for me. Kyle and I kept saying to each other, like, we can go in there and throw a fit and throw water coolers. General Manager John Lynch again. But those guys were giving outstanding attitude each day.

And here's Kyle Shanahan. We took over 2-14 team. We knew we had a long way to work. We didn't expect to be 0-9, but we're going to keep working and not reinvent the wheel. We've heard from everybody in the building that it was a remarkably positive locker room. And most people attribute that to you. So I'm curious to hear what you did specifically to make that happen. I don't know if I did a good job. It was my first time in that situation.

And I think every situation is different. I mean, people act like there's like a book or something to handle situations. You got to adjust to what the situation is. And you don't know that until you're in it. One big reason the 49ers were in that situation is that they didn't have a quality quarterback. And as Shanahan told us, I mean, it's the toughest, to me, position in the world.

And there's 32 teams, and there isn't 32 people who can play that position at the level needed. But remember, in the NFL, as in all the big American sports leagues, the worse a team's record is at the level needed. But remember, in the NFL, as in all the big American sports leagues, the worse a team's record is at the end of the season, the better position they'll be to draft the best players from college. We were 0-9. I knew we were going to be in the position to have a high draft pick. A lot of quarterbacks were coming out that we knew were going to go in the first round. But there was a quarterback already in the NFL who Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch thought

could be a good fit for the 49ers. Yeah, Kyle studied him out of college. I studied the heck out of him coming out of college. He was one of the guys who kept showing up on Kyle's teach tapes in terms of the quick release, the accuracy of the traits you're looking for in quarterbacks. This quarterback was in his fourth season in the NFL, but he barely played at all. And that's because he was the backup to one of the most successful quarterbacks in history, Tom Brady of the New England Patriots.

Brady had just turned 40 years old, but he had declared that he did not plan to retire anytime soon. And this declaration apparently made the backup quarterback, the heir apparent to Brady, expendable. Here's 49ers owner Jed York. You know, it's hard to see into somebody else's building and know where they are and what they're doing. But when you have Tom Brady,

and Tom says he wants to play another four or five years, that's a very, very difficult decision to make for the Patriots. I asked Shanahan and Lynch how surprised they were to learn that a quarterback they coveted had suddenly become available for trade. I was surprised just because we checked earlier in the year and he wasn't then, and then it happened just a day or two days before the trade deadline.

You know, we called the Patriots about him. We quickly got shut down. They were not interested in getting rid of him, and I don't blame them. And something changed, and we were the beneficiary of that. And people call it genius if that's genius. I don't know. We got lucky. This quarterback's name is Jimmy Garoppolo.

What's up, guys? Garoppolo's agent, who happens to also be Tom Brady's agent, called to tell him he'd been traded to the 49ers, but Garoppolo didn't pick up. I took a nap, woke up, just about 100 text messages, 100 missed calls. How long was your nap? Well, it wasn't that long, I swear. You go through so many emotions initially because you don't know what's going on. I've never been in this situation before, and so your emotions are going wild.

But next thing I knew, I was a 49er. And, you know, the rest is history. Garoppolo wasn't expected to play right away, maybe not even until next season. He had to learn the 49ers offense from scratch. And Shanahan saw no reason to rush their quarterback of the future and maybe get him hurt. And then in the 10th game of the season, the 49ers finally won behind quarterback C.J. Bethard. But the following week, they were getting beaten badly. And then, Bethard got hurt.

There was no way to salvage the victory. Shanahan sent Garoppolo in anyway. Garoppolo, moving to his left, looking towards the end zone, he throws! Touchdown! We're walking off the field and the crowd's like cheering and we just got blown out and our fans were excited. Okay, so now the 49ers are 1-10. In the next game, Garoppolo gets his first start. Garoppolo over the middle, caught by Taylor! First down and more! The 49ers beat the Chicago Bears 15-14. Here's Solomon Thomas.

It was just, a win felt so good, and it's something we didn't want to take for granted, and something that we always wanted to keep feeling. The next game, Jimmy Garoppolo passed for 334 yards, and the 49ers won again. And we got in the role, and, you know, Jimmy came in, was doing incredible, you know. That motivated the team as well,

and it was pretty special. With Garoppolo leading the way, the San Francisco 49ers won five straight games, including three against playoff-bound teams, and they finished the season at 6-10. See you later! Touchdown San Francisco! What are the odds of a team losing their first nine games and then winning their last five?

You can't count that high. It's not like Jimmy was the savior, right? It's the whole team. Parag Marate again. And every single player played better, had more confidence, and saw the culmination of their hard work and patience that they had towards the vision sort of come to fruition.

Jimmy was the catalyst, like the first spark plug, but it really ignited the whole team. Here's Joe Staley. I mean, it was huge for our team last year to finish the way we did. Jimmy coming in really made a huge difference for us. And Kyle Juszczyk. I think you really got to give Jimmy a lot of credit. I mean, he put in serious time after practice with the coaches by himself. I mean, he was here all night just trying to learn this playbook.

And Jed York, the owner. I mean, it was very clear that Jimmy was a guy that, you know, took everybody's attention on the field. Like, the guys gravitated towards him, and he's a natural leader. As a reward, Jimmy Garoppolo, having sat on the bench for four seasons in New England and then started a grand total of five games for San Francisco, Garoppolo signed a five-year contract worth $137.5 million. It was, at that point, the richest contract in NFL history. You know, for the most part, I just go out and do my thing. You know, all the outside noise is just noise. You get caught up in all that stuff, you're going to have a tough time.

The NFL is hard enough as it is. From everything that we've heard from everyone on the exec side and on the player side you're some combination of like y.a tittle and superman and jesus christ like people just gather around you and love you it's a pretty good combo yeah i think you know i've never really tried to fake it or you know be uh i don't know someone that i'm not because you know guys i, especially in NFL locker room, they see right through that. They're not dumb. So you just have to be yourself. I don't know. I've always thought of myself as one of the guys, and I think that plays a big part in that. It had been a bizarre season for the 49ers. The deepest gloom replaced almost overnight

by the brightest of futures. But now there's a question. What exactly are the San Francisco 49ers? Are they the best 6-10 team in history, the team that won their last five games? Or are they, well, a 6-10 team? Teams that go 6-10 one year are not very likely to win the Super Bowl next year. Although, sport being sport, crazy things do happen.

That's one reason we like it. So, what happens this year? Back in May, when we visited the 49ers, I'd asked York and everyone else to predict how the team would finish this year. Their answers were, to me at least, remarkable. And they probably said a lot about what kind of mindset you need to run a team and the mindset of a working athlete. Here's how the executives, York, Guido, Lynch, and Marate, answered when I asked about their expectations.

I think you never know what's going to happen in an NFL season, but it's really about getting better each and every game. their expectations. I think you never know what's going to happen in an NFL season, but it's really about getting better each and every game. I don't have any predictions on wins or losses. I don't want to put a number on it. That we continue to stay on the path. Like if, you know, if we were still building towards something and it didn't necessarily lead to wins, that's okay. If we're on that path that we're all believing. I think you'd agree that the executives are the definition of noncommittal. And here are the players. And they, I think you'd agree,

are anything but noncommittal. Here in order are Solomon Thomas, Kyle Juszczyk, Malcolm Smith, and Joe Staley. You know, our goal is to win it all. And so I feel like we have the potential to do that. I got high expectations and I expect to win. I think you can already feel that things feel a lot different than they did last year. The ultimate success would be the Super Bowl.

I'd always just think of it as a Super Bowl. We also spoke with the 49ers place kicker, Robbie Gold, one of the most accurate and productive kickers in the modern NFL. He's been in the league since 2005, most of those years with the Chicago Bears. He's grateful for his longevity and realistic about his future. You know, I mean, you can be here one day and gone the next. I mean, I got cut in Chicago on Labor Day weekend after, you know, making the team. And then the next day, it's just how it is. How high are your hopes for this year? Obviously, you ended, making the team and then the next day it's just how it is. How high are your hopes for this year? Obviously ended last year amazingly well.

I think the expectations and the locker room and the feel and the vibe is pretty high. You think this team can win 10 games? I think they can win a Super Bowl. You know, I think it's just a matter of how bad do you want it. Like I'm not here to win a t-shirt and hat. I'm here to win a Tiffany's trophy. That's it. That's the only reason I'm here. And if you are here for a t-shirt and hat, then I'll buy you the t-shirt and hat

because I want the trophy. In the NFL season that's just begun, the San Francisco 49ers lost their first game on the road against the favored Minnesota Vikings and then beat the Detroit Lions at home, but barely, nearly blowing a big lead. As Jed York told me by email after the game, we need to finish better if we want to get to the promised land. And next time on Freakonomics Radio, where do these athletes come from?

What sort of talent and sacrifice and work does it take to get to the promised land? And what about luck? Oh my gosh, I think a ton of luck is involved. Our Hidden Side of Sports series continues with a look at what it takes to become an elite athlete. I did a bunch of push-ups and sit-ups that night until I was throwing up. Shooting a basketball and seeing it go through the net became just an obsession. We look at what kind of people do and don't get the opportunities. In 1981, there was 18.7% Black African-American players in the major leagues.

As of 2018, 7.8%. We'll hear about the role of talent. There's 10,000 talented players with a gift. It's which are the ones that figure it out, which are the ones that get it. And we'll hear what sport you should get your kid into if the goal is getting into an elite university? So the answer, I think, is you want your kid to be a fencer. That's next time. And if you want to hear the full unedited interviews with all the 49ers personnel you heard from in today's episode,

those will be posted on Stitcher Premium. Just go to stitcherpremium.com slash Freakonomics and use promo code Freakonomics for one month free. Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Anders Kelto with help from Derek John. Special thanks to all the 49ers, but especially Bob Lang, their VP of Communications. Our staff includes Allison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Greg Rosalski, Alvin Melleth, Harry Huggins, Zach Lipinski, and Andy Meisenheimer. The music you hear throughout our episodes was composed by Luis Guerra. Freakonomics Radio can be found on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Our entire archive is available on the Stitcher app or at Freakonomics.com, where we also publish transcripts and show notes. And at Stitcher Premium, you will find the entire archive ad-free, as well as lots of bonus episodes, including full interviews with the 49ers, as well as other extras from our Hidden Side of Sports series.

Just go to StitcherPremium.com slash Freakonomics. We can also be found on NPR stations across the country. Check your to stitcherpremium.com slash Freakonomics. We can also be found on NPR stations across the country. Check your local listing for the schedule as well as on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or via email at radio at Freakonomics.com. Thanks for listening.