49ers coach Jim Tomsula under the pump

AFTER Jarryd Hayne’s banishment to the practice squad, the heat has been turned up on besieged 49ers coach Jim Tomsula.

San Francisco 49ers v St Louis Rams

HE didn’t exactly enamour himself to Australian fans by turfing Jarryd Hayne back to the practice squad, but displeasure in the performance of 49ers coach Jim Tomsula isn’t limited to NFL followers Down Under.

As his San Francisco team lurches from crisis to crisis, the knives are starting to appear for the man in charge at Levi’s Stadium.

Just eight games into his first head coaching job in the NFL, questions are already being raised about how long Tomsula will last.

The cut-throat nature of the league was on show this week when Tennessee’s Ken Whisenhunt became the second coach fired this season. Whisenhunt only took charge of the Titans last season and had enjoyed just five starts with his quarterback of the future, top draft pick Marcus Mariota.

But that didn’t stop him joining Miami’s Joe Philbin — who was dumped four games into the season — on the unemployment line.

With Whisenhunt gone, attention has now turned to which head coach will be the next out the door — and Tomsula is near the top of the list.

USA Today’s Nate Davis ranked Tomsula — who served as the 49ers’ defensive line coach before replacing Jim Harbaugh — as the third most likely coach to be fired next, behind Indianapolis’s Chuck Pagano and Detroit’s Jim Caldwell.

Davis viewed Tomsula’s decision to bench quarterback Colin Kaepernick as a sign his season was spinning out of control.

“When you turn to QB Blaine Gabbert to salvage your season, you’ve hit the panic button — with a closed fist,” Davis wrote. “Only Niners brass knows whether that was truly the call of Tomsula, who’s also hamstrung by a roster full of pulled hamstrings and worse. But this team has not looked ready to play the past two weeks, and a head coach must answer for that.”

The criticism has been even more fierce on social media. Pro Football Talk producer Rob Guerrera described Tomsula as a “potato with a moustache” while Sports Illustrated’s Doug Farrar joked the 49ers should sack him and install him as interim coach because he won his only game as a fill-in when Mike Singletary was fired late in the 2010 season.

49ers fan @StatsOnFire would take Ken Whisenhunt right now over Jim Tomsula. On Tomsula: "He's a potato with a mustache."

— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) November 3, 2015

This is my best idea of 2015: The 49ers fire Jim Tomsula as head coach, then immediately hire him as interim head coach.

— Doug Farrar (@SI_DougFarrar) November 2, 2015

Sources:Kapernick and Tomsula for Gruden and RG3. Would be major downgrade for both teams.

— PFTCommenter (@PFTCommenter) November 3, 2015

Jim Tomsula delivering the news to Kaepernick pic.twitter.com/vCH99gChBa

— Chris Law (@ChrisLaw) November 3, 2015

A one-time regular playoff team — and winner of five Super Bowls — San Francisco is now in turmoil.

The 49ers have been devastated by injuries, lost six of eight games, are last in the NFC West division and every player, coach and executive is in danger of losing their job.

Back-up Blaine Gabbert will start in place of Kaepernick against the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday at the 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium.

The 49ers also traded their longest-serving player Vernon Davis to the Denver Broncos for draft picks.

Hayne was scheduled to return to the 49ers’ facility on Wednesday.

Any chance he had of reclaiming a position on the 53-man roster disappeared when the 49ers signed two free agent running backs in the past 24 hours, Pierre Thomas, formerly with the New Orleans Saints, and Shaun Draughn, a journeyman with stops at seven NFL teams.

They will fill the running back holes left by Reggie Bush, who suffered a season-ending medial collateral ligament tear in his left knee, Mike Davis who will have surgery on a broken hand and Carlos Hyde, who has a stress fracture in his foot.

— with AP

Originally published as 49ers coach Jim Tomsula under the pump