San Francisco 49ers offensive lineman Alex Boone has suggested that former head coach Jim Harbaugh wore out his welcome at the club.
The 49ers and Harbaugh parted company at the end of the 2014 season, despite a successful four-year tenure at the club during which he guided the NFC West side to the Super Bowl in the 2012 season and the NFC championship game in the 2011 and 2013 campaigns.
However, Boone believes that Harbaugh's intensity became too much for his players to bear in the final season as they missed the playoffs for the first time under his charge.
He told HBO: "He does a great job of giving you that spark, that initial boom. 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.
"I think he just pushed guys too far. He wanted too much, demanded too much, expected too much. 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.'"
Harbaugh joined college side the Michigan Wolverines following his departure from the 49ers.
Simon Sinclair
