49ers assistant Rathman leaving team after 8 years of coaching carousel

Few members of the San Francisco 49ers organization have survived all five of the team's coaching changes through the last eight years. However, one of the few scrappers who had been holding on finally hit a road block.

While new head coach Kyle Shanahan was hoping to find a spot for him, running backs coach Tom Rathman will not be returning to the 49ers' staff. Shanahan hired former Atlanta Falcons assistant Bobby Turner to fill Rathman's role.

"I'm not going to be back," Rathman told Matt Maiocco of CSN Bay Area. "I feel like it's the best for everybody if I just parted and let those guys do their thing and take me out of the equation so that nobody's uncomfortable.

"I'm looking to coach running backs and that's what I want to do. I'm just going to wait for the next opportunity and go for it when it happens."

Rathman previously won two Super Bowls with the 49ers as a fullback, playing eight years with the team, and also served as running backs coach from 1997 to 2002. He says he doesn't harbor any bad feelings towards the 49ers organization, though he didn't want to just take any job handed to him.

"I have no hard feelings," said Rathman. "It's just the nature of the business. Everybody just has to understand that. In pro football, coaches get fired and new guys come in and they bring their guys. I totally understand it. I don't have a problem with it."

Rathman was re-hired to the 49ers in 2009 by head coach Mike Singletary and was kept on by Jim Harbaugh, Jim Tomsula, and Chip Kelly before being replaced by Turner.