The calendar said that Sunday was a fresh new year, but the atmosphere at Levi’s Stadium felt like the same old stale garbage.

Change was in the air. Trent Baalke was out as general manager, fired at the start of the weekend. Chip Kelly was forced to coach the last game of the season with rumors of his own firing hanging over his head, but the word wasn’t official until two hours after the game, a 25-23 loss to the Seahawks.

The firings were first reported and then officially announced by, of course, the media outlets that get leaked news from the 49ers’ owner’s office. CEO Jed York will speak directly at 10 a.m. Monday.

Few observers could feel that change equals hope. Because for the third straight year the 49ers ended a season in chaos and embarrassment.

News of the firings was leaked before the final game, putting the people trying to coach and play a football game in an awkward position. It was clumsy. It was out of order. It was pure dysfunction.

In other words, the same old stale 49ers garbage. Apparently York still hasn’t learned from his considerable, monumental mistakes.

For the third straight year a coach came into his last postgame news conference not knowing whether he had a job. Kelly had to stand there and be asked about the rumors.

“That stuff doesn’t bother me,” Kelly said, and he might have been telling the truth. But it was incredibly unprofessional. His firing was all over social media on New Year’s Eve. York called him and left a voice mail, and Kelly called him back. The gist of their conversation was that they would talk after Sunday’s game. Kelly didn’t even know that his general manager had already been fired.

This is two consecutive one-and-done seasons for 49ers head coaches. No NFL team has taken that route since the inept 1977-78 49ers. Even Al Davis’ coaching turnstile didn’t shuffle Raiders coaches out so quickly.

At the end of all three seasons at Levi’s, the 49ers have fired their head coach. They owe millions in payoffs. Now they are going for a total reset again.

The takeaway? The past two years have been a waste. Whatever talent and momentum was in the building during the Jim Harbaugh era has withered away. There is no head coach, no strong front office, no quarterback for the future, no continuity. Nothing. It is the exact opposite of the correct way to run a franchise.

And who is going to be the one who tries to fix this mess?

If we’re to believe the words of his father, John, from a few weeks back, son Jed will still be in charge and making the decisions. That, despite the fact that Jed’s football decisions have been universally terrible — except for one, the no-brainer hire of a guy a few miles up the freeway at Stanford back in 2011.

The 49ers are once again late to the party. The Rams, Jaguars and Bills already have their changes under way. The Broncos, an appealing job, are starting a transition now that Gary Kubiak is retiring. The Chargers are looking for a coach.

The 49ers could have gotten ahead of the curve. They could have let Baalke go months ago and let someone else evaluate whether he wanted Kelly as a coach or which players on the roster are worth keeping. Instead the 49ers handed out contract extensions that a new GM and coach will have to deal with, as the worst season in history dragged on with no purpose. And, yes, it was worse than 1978 or ’79 because of where the team was positioned just three years ago.

The season from hell finally ended Sunday with the loss to the Seahawks. A plane circled the stadium with a banner proclaiming “Levi’s Stadium: The House That Harbaugh Built,” just the latest in a series of insulting banners that have been flown overhead.

Seattle won the division. In the three years York and Baalke have spent dismantling the 49ers and going 15-33, their onetime archrival has gone 32-15-1 and made the playoffs every year.

As a parting gift after his own ousting, Baalke — who made a long series of bad personnel decisions — suggested on his pregame radio show that firing Kelly was a good idea. He said that he is “a big fan” of an organizational reset, a fancy way of saying a full housecleaning and a knife in the back to Kelly.

“Sometimes you need to reset the culture,” Baalke said on KNBR. “I do think there’s some very good young talent on this team. With a good offseason, the right reset, I think good things are ahead for them.”

Not sure how he can ascertain that. His only winning culture was primarily the product of Scot McCloughan’s draft picks and Harbaugh’s coaching ability. And right now the roster, from all impartial analysis, is in tatters.

The 49ers are now looking for a new general manager and a new coach simultaneously. The last time they did that, the Yorks fired both Terry Donahue and Dennis Erickson and hired Mike Nolan, giving Nolan the “trigger” on the roster. When that didn’t work out, they passed the “trigger” to McCloughan.

It took a long time, a lot of mistakes and a coach from Stanford to start winning. But now that seems like a million years ago.

Sure, there was change on Sunday. But it was really the same old garbage.

Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: akillion@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annkillion

5 times 2

This is the fifth season in franchise history the 49ers have won only two games. In only one of the five did the same coach stay through the entire season and return the next: Bill Walsh.

Year Record Coaches 1963 2-12 Jack Christiansen, Red Hickey 1978 2-14 Fred O’Connor, Pete McCulley 1979 2-14 Bill Walsh 2004 2-14 Dennis Erickson-x 2016 2-14 Chip Kelly