COMMENTARY By Mike Celizic MSNBC contributor

Just because you’re 2-14 and officially the worst team in pro football – and one of the worst in all sports – doesn’t mean you can’t brag about something. So go ahead, 49ers fans. Take the trolley to the top of Nob Hill and crow to the world: “Of all the bad owners of all the bad teams in sports, ours is the baddest.”

You won’t get marks for grammar, but you won’t get an argument, either. And don’t sell the distinction that John York and his wife, Denise DeBartolo-York, have brought you. It takes a lot of hard effort to make the Cardinals’ Bill Bidwill look like the best owner any team ever had. It’s not easy in the most egalitarian and competitive league in sports to be this incompetent.

The Yorks would have us believe that the pall of gloom that has settled on a team that has won five Super Bowls is about to be lifted. Dennis Erickson, the coach who replaced Steve Mariucci two years ago and promptly lead a charge down the sewer, is out. So, too, is Terry Donahue, the general manager who, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, engineered a payroll that was $17 million under the salary cap and the most penurious in the league.

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Happy days, these twin firings are supposed to suggest, are just around the corner, maybe as close as the NFL draft, in which the 49ers have first pick.

Don’t believe it. If the Cardinals’ Bill Bidwill is any kind of example at all – and his consistently horrendous performances have proved he is – bad owners are the ultimate guarantee of failure. They can change management teams as often as they change their socks, and they’ll still be bad.

And the Yorks are worse than Bidwill. They can get a new coach and a new GM., but they won’t get better, because bad goes to the bone.

It’s eight years since Ed DeBartolo Jr. had to disassociate himself from the team in the wake of a federal investigation into bribes paid to secure a gambling license in Louisiana, and five seasons since the Yorks officially took over the team. It also is 11 years since the team’s last Super Bowl win.

There’s a trend here, and it mirrors DeBartolo’s fall from grace and his sister and brother-in-law’s ascension. DeBartolo, whose father built the family fortune nearly half a century ago by being among the first in on a newfangled idea called the shopping mall, proved not to be the most ethical businessman on the face of the earth, but he was a heckuva team owner.

DeBartolo spent money, and he spent it pretty wisely – at least his management team, headed by GM Carmen Policy, did. And if fans couldn’t always be proud of their owner – did I mention that ugly sexual assault allegation? - they could be proud of their team.

As the Chronicle pointed out in December, DeBartolo, despite his reputation for lavish spending, wasn’t the most profligate owner in the league. But his management team knew how to maneuver around the salary cap and, if some of his deals tied the teams’ hands for a while, they’re no longer a factor. Besides, plenty of franchises find ways to outspend the cap and put teams on the field that contend for championships.

But the Yorks have found a way to spend less last season than any team in the NFL, even the Cardinals. They managed to spend less on three quarterbacks than the league average salary for one player, all while managing to avoid reducing ticket prices. Which means they reaped a windfall of profits from the NFL’s share-all-the-wealth economic system.

Firing Erickson and Donahue will suck up some of that excess money. Both have a lot of money left on their deals. And that might allow optimistic fans to think that the Yorks have seen the errors of their ways and are about to make everything better.

But go back to Bill Bidwill again and think again. You’ll realize that being a bad owner isn’t something you can unlearn; you’re either born with the talent to stink out the joint, or you’re not.

The Yorks will change management, but if they let Donahue sell them on his cockamamie ideas about managing payrolls and evaluating talent, they’ll do the same for whoever the new guy is. If they could hire Erickson, strip the team of any discernible talent, then blame him for the predictable lack of success, they can do the same to the next coach.

The name on the jerseys is a proud one, but the franchise is a sinkhole. And it will remain so as long as the guy ultimately calling the shots doesn’t have a clue about what he’s doing.

John York and Denise DeBartolo-York have proved themselves to be clueless. They spent their lives getting that way. They’re not going to change. They ran the 49ers down until the team is a joke, of no consequence as a competitive force. You don’t do that by accident. It takes real talent to be that bad.

They’re number 32, and you, the fans, are there with them. Get used to it. It’s not going to change.

Mike Celizic writes regularly for NBCSports.com and is a freelance writer based in New York.

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