Alex Boone was one of the most vocal supporters of Jim Harbaugh before Harbaugh and the San Francisco 49ers decided to part ways. The offensive lineman said at the start of last season that everybody “loves” Harbaugh, and he seemed pretty genuine.
Now that Harbaugh has moved on to Ann Arbor, Boone feels more comfortable telling the truth about what was really going on inside the walls of Levi’s Stadium last year. During a chat with Andrea Kramer for the latest episode of HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” Boone admitted Harbaugh wore out his welcome.
“He does a great job of giving you that spark, that initial boom,” he said, per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. “But after a while, you just want to kick his ass. … He just keeps pushing you, and you’re like, ‘Dude, we got over the mountain. Stop. Let go.’ He kind of wore out his welcome.”
It’s no secret that Harbaugh is an emotional guy. That’s one of the reasons many believe he is best served coaching college athletes.
“I think he just pushed guys too far. He wanted too much, demanded too much, expected too much,” Boone added. “You know, ‘We gotta go out and do this. We gotta go out and do this. We gotta go out and do this.’ And you’d be like, ‘This guy might be clinically insane. He’s crazy.’ … I think that if you’re stuck in your ways enough, eventually people are just going to say, ‘Listen, we just can’t work with this.’”
Boone also noted that the players had nothing to do with Harbaugh being fired, which is inconsistent with reports like this that were scattered throughout the 2014 season. Still, it’s interesting to see how much Boone’s perspective seems to have changed.
