Instead of admitting that the reason Jim Harbaugh is no longer the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers is the personal hatred between him and the duo of Jed York and Trent Baalke, the team’s CEO is trying to rewrite history by telling stories of core strengths and back to basics.

Harbaugh took a team that forgot what a playoff game was and led them to three consecutive conference championship games. One of them turned into a Super Bowl, and being one play away from winning it. The same thing happened after the 2013 season in the playoffs against the Seahawks: One play away from winning. That’s not a team that sounds like it needs the massive change their going through right now.

We’re trying to win a Super Bowl. We haven’t been able to do that. And I think what we’re trying to do is build a team that focuses on our core strengths. I think we got away from that a little bit. I think we tried to do too much and be something that we weren’t. I think you’re gonna see us get back to the basics, get back to letting our players go out and make plays. . . . You look at our offense last year. It wasn’t I think where it should have been. I think we have better talent than what our results showed.

Yes, the 49ers went 8-8 last season, missing the playoffs. Their offense looked like a mess. He had too many coaches. That served as the perfect alibi for York to fire, or mutually agree to part ways with Harbaugh, who has never gotten along with Baalke or York, two men who didn’t like seeing their head coach taking up all of the credit.

But the talk of going back to basics and these fantastical “core strengths”? That sounds like someone who doesn’t want to own up to what he did and what he caused. Maybe York and Baalke know what they’re doing and will send the 49ers into some golden era of success.

But with the amount of key players leaving the team in all sorts of manners, it sounds more like they’re in over their heads with this rebuilding job, and it might take a while before the 49ers are relevant and mentioned with the ‘Super Bowl’ phrase again.

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