49ers: Lots of questions, few answers

Burning questions about the 49ers from the scorching sands of ’Zona. ...

Is it possible that the Jim Harbaugh haters and lovers

have strong cases? Is it really as simple as Jed York ruined everything by firing Harbaugh? Isn’t the 49ers’ roster badly depleted partly as a fallout from Harbaugh’s coddling of bad actors, whose eventual departures left the cupboard bare?

Jimmy Hardball drove York to infuriation, but didn’t Harbaugh also grind on the players? Is it possible he got out while the getting was good, before his genius completely unraveled and the last of his manly men got hauled off to jail or mutinied (which also is a crime)?

Was Harbaugh a Jekyll who created Colin Kaepernick a Hyde who broke him down?

What price victory? Was that brief stretch of glory worth the tradeoff of putting up with Harbaugh (and remember, you didn’t have to work with him every day), and enduring the painful breakup and rebuild?

Were the 49ers outcoached the past two games? Didn’t the Cardinals publicly predict an interception-fest because of Kaepernick’s trouble passing outside the hash marks, and because the 49ers’ playbook is so slimmed down that pass routes are easily read?

Do the 49ers’ coaches not read the papers?

Didn’t Greg Roman say last year that he’d cleaned out the garage (playbook)? Is that garage as clean as a hospital O.R.?

Is Arizona head coach Bruce Arians a mad scientist with a million offensive plays? Doesn’t he give off a Bill Walsh vibe: hip, creative, gutsy?

Doesn’t it seem like many great coaches are mad scientists? Is Jim Tomsula either?

Didn’t Atlanta offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan — whose midgame adjustments Sunday sparked a dramatic win over Dallas — decline to interview for the 49ers’ OC job after Vic Fangio was bypassed in favor of Tomsula?

If the 49ers’ fall continues, when will Tomsula get the blame/axe?

Will he get another season, partly because York won’t want to go into his Super Bowl host role with his team a dusty construction site?

Is there a better soap opera in football?

SCOTT OSTLER Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: sostler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @scottostler