The Jed York situation keeps getting weirder for the 49ers

It’s been nearly a month since San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York was arrested in an Ohio prostitution sting and, a day later, pleaded no contest to two misdemeanors. And the strange news cycle surrounding it just will not die.

ESPN insider Adam Schefter offered up the latest twist, sharing on Sunday that York flew to Australia for the Niners’ Week 1 matchup with the Rams.

“49ers owner Jed York, who was in Australia but did not attend his team’ regular-season opener, also will miss Sunday’s home opener in San Francisco vs. the Dolphins, per sources,” Schefter wrote. “York is said to be staying away from the team so as not to create a distraction while the NFL is expected to make a decision on any potential discipline for him ‘soon’, per a source.”

Schefter’s report was the first time anyone had mentioned a York trip Down Under alongside the 49ers, who spent a full week in Melbourne ahead of beating the Rams. On game day in Australia, NFL insider Tom Pelissero went on the Netflix pregame show and said York was “not expected to attend” the Week 1 game, though he didn’t note anything about York’s whereabouts.

San Francisco beat reporters raised their collective eyebrows over the Schefter report, with one coming extremely close to calling the entire thing into question.

Longtime Bay Area columnist Tim Kawakami wrote in the San Francisco Standard that he asked several 49ers people about this report on Sunday, when the 49ers beat the Dolphins in their home opener. “All of them said they didn’t see him in Australia,” Kawakami wrote. On the “49ers Plus Minus” podcast he co-hosts with the Athletic’s Matt Barrows, he went even deeper regarding the strangeness surrounding the report. 

“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t there, but was he hiding from 49ers people? Was he like, ‘Oh no, you can’t see me?’ That’s a weird thing,” Kawakami said. “One, it’s a weird report if it’s not true, and two, if it’s true, it’s weirder. What the hell was he doing out there if nobody saw him? Weird. I’ll just say, this whole thing’s weird.”

Barrows, who confirmed he didn’t see York or hear that York was in Melbourne, quipped back at Kawakami, “Maybe he was in Perth, or he was, you know, snorkeling along the Great Barrier Reef.”

Kawakami pointed out — both on the podcast and in prior columns — that York is known to be in close contact with national NFL insiders, like Schefter. There certainly is a possibility that Schefter is the only person who knows what York was up to simply because York was directly telling Schefter.

On Sunday, Front Office Sports reported the NFL is still mulling what its punishment of York will be, saying a punishment — it it happens at all — “could come soon.”

According to multiple reports, York has spent most of the summer back in Ohio near his hometown of Youngstown as he goes through divorce proceedings with his wife. General manager John Lynch has previously said the team’s leadership in Santa Clara has held meetings over Zoom with York preparing for any potential punishment, and according to Front Office Sports could mitigate any league action by trying to keep York away from the team.