Mike Holmgren wanted to coach the 49ers but was told he was “too old”

San Francisco 49ers are moving forward this year with Jim Tomsula and a thrown together coaching staff, but they could have had a veteran Super Bowl winning coach. Mike Holmgren told Rich Eisen that he really wanted to coach the 49ers, but the team told him he was “too old”. 

“[T]his last December, after the season, I had a couple of chances, and almost took one of them, and then realized that, ‘What am I doing?’” Holmgren told Rich Eisen on Friday. “You know, I’d be traveling across the country and my grandkids are all in Seattle, and my life is really good but I had the bug still, and then I told my agent, ‘You know, the one I’d really kind of like to do is San Francisco,’ and so they reached out to the 49ers and essentially, I got a call back saying, ‘Nah, we’re going with a younger guy.’”

“I probably needed to hear that because you get your ego stroked and you’re flattered when people call you and you kind of get into a place where I’m not sure you’re making great decisions, but when I heard that I said, ‘Okay, I needed to hear that and now I’m going onto other things.’”