Monday, December 13, 2010

Dr. Jekyll and The San Francisco 49ers

For the past few seasons the 49ers have started the season miserably and finished the season with a semi decent record. That should be the sign of a team that refuses to quit, shows character and resolve. But that's not what we have here in San Francisco. It's quite the opposite. The San Francisco 49ers were picked my many "experts" as a 10-6 or 11-5 team that would dominate the NFC West and march through the regular season and one of the reasons why they were considered a good team this season is because of how they finished last season. For some reason the "experts" fail to recognize what I noticed well before the 2010 season began. The 49ers are a bad football team that somehow manages to finish the season strong and give hope to fans who are still under the impression that the dynasty of the 80's and 90's is just a few wins away. Let me burst that bubble and shatter that bottle of Cristal. This franchise is in disarray, the front office is loaded with ineptness, the ownership group is clueless on their best day and unfortunately the fans are delusional and it's time to make wholesale changes.

The rumor mill and Jay Glazer have been talking about John Gruden landing in Santa Clara as the head football coach and I strongly believe he would be an excellent fit. The team has a very good nucleus of players at the skill positions (with the exception of the most important skill position in all of football of course) and his west coast style of offense, which was patterned after the genius Bill Walsh, would be a breath of fresh air here in San Fran. The problem is that any coach willing to work for The Yorks likely doesn't have the resume that Chucky has, hence the last three head coaches had zero head coaching experience when they landed the job. I have a very difficult time believing that the job down in Santa Clara is something that guys like Gruden, Cower or Jeff Fisher are willing to take under the current regime. Unless the owners are willing and able to recognize their ineptness and admit defeat, when they fire Singletary they are simply going to be forced to hire the next Mike Singletary and continue to watch this once great franchise crash and burn.