Back hopes long run not over
Jim Harbaugh leaned over and looked seriously at Frank Gore’s young sons.
“Your dad is the best,” Harbaugh said. “One of the greatest players ever.”
Those were some of the last words Harbaugh uttered as head coach of the 49ers, and they were appropriate. Because Gore flourished as one of the game’s top running backs under Harbaugh.
Now, one has left and the other might go. Gore, who is a free agent, might have played his last game with the 49ers on Sunday.
If so, it was a magnificent finale. He rushed for 144 yards on 25 carries, surpassing the 1,000-yard mark in rushing for the eighth time in his 10-year career and becoming the 20th player in NFL history to run for more than 11,000 yards.
“I can do it if they just give me the ball,” said Gore, who will turn 32 in May.
Gore surpassed Warrick Dunn to move into 20th place on the career rushing list. Gore and Atlanta’s Steven Jackson are the only active players in the top 20.
Whether Gore moves up the list in a 49ers uniform — he is 163 yards behind O.J. Simpson and 168 behind Corey Dillon — remains to be seen.
“I want to be back. I wish we can get things worked out,” he said. “But I also know it’s a business. I respect the other running backs: Carlos Hyde, Kendall Hunter. They’ve got potential to be great.”
Gore also wants to see what happens to the team. He often was frustrated with how he was used this season. And he realizes there will be big changes.
“I want to know the coaching staff coming in, the guys who have been here,” Gore said. “I want to know when the game’s on the line, they’re going to fight like me.”
Gore played hard every game and every season, through injuries and doubters. He was a third-round draft pick, with concerns about his injury history and size. For a decade, he has been the inspirational leader of the 49ers. This season, his teammates voted him the recipient of the Len Eshmont Award, given for “inspirational and courageous play.”
“Frank has been huge for my career,” quarterback Colin Kaepernick said. “Not only as a running back and taking pressure off the passing game by the way he runs the football, but in protection and keeping my jersey clean. He does everything you ask of him and more. He does it without question.”
Many believe Gore is a future Hall of Famer, though he might need to win a Super Bowl to assure that selection. Who knows if he can fulfill that goal with the 49ers?
Gore said he cried before Sunday’s game.
“Because when I got here I was 21,” he said, “I was a kid. … You see all of the fans who’ve been here since I was 21, cheering for me.
“I don’t know what will happen.”