49ers Getting Help From Above To Avoid Death From Above

San Francisco head coach Mike Singletary has this curious habit of thanking the big fella (and I don’t mean defensive tackle Aubrayo Franklin) every time his team comes out of a game with a win.

This weekend however, he might want to thank Her, as in Mother Nature, before the game even starts.

Around last Tuesday or so, the situation looked very bleak for the red and gold.

Sure, they’d just won a huge Monday night game against the NFC West-leading Cardinals 24-9, but now the next game on the schedule had them going to Philadelphia, to pay a visit to the 9-4 Eagles, leaders of the NFC East and winners of four straight.

The Eagles, as is custom this time of year under Andy Reid, are peaking.

Not only does Philadelphia boast a ball-hawking, opportunistic defense that’s particularly stingy on third downs and in the red zone, but also their offense is perhaps the most inventive and multidimensional of anybody’s outside of the Saints.

They’ve got a jackhammer at running back with Leonard Weaver, a smaller, quicker guy in LeSean McCoy that they use on screens, a big play tight end in Brent Celek, the ultimate Wildcat weapon in Michael Vick, and of course they’ve got DeSean Jackson, who’s only the most prominent playmaker in the NFL.

Triggering the attack is an in-form Donovan McNabb, who’s been tormenting the Niners (and the rest of the league) for years, and who’s been far more accurate on the deep ball this season than any other in his 11-year career.

On paper, this looks like a disastrous matchup.

While the Niners defense has been plenty stout at home, they’ve been cannon fodder on the road, particularly against the pass, and their secondary has been torn to shreds by Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Matt Schaub, and Aaron Rodgers.

Consider these numbers: At home San Francisco is 5-2, and has allowed 15.3 points per game, 217 passing yards per game, 314.9 yards overall, and forced 20 turnovers, which works out to 2.67 per contest.

On the road however, they’re 1-5, they give up 22.5 points per game, 274.7 passing yards per and 366.3 overall, and they’ve come away with only five turnovers, or 0.83 per contest.

To put it another way, the 49ers have allowed 28 more points and 129 more passing yards on the road than at home this season, despite having played one fewer road game so far.

San Francisco’s secondary was incredible against the Cardinals on Monday, but their two receivers, Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin, are big guys who specialize in catching short and intermediate range passes and shaking off would-be tacklers.

They’re not burners like Jackson, whom the 49ers scouts saw plenty of during his college days at Cal, yet still passed over in the draft not once but twice.

Jackson plays with a chip on his shoulder anyway, incredulous (as he should be) that someone with his talent lasted until the 49th pick of the 2008 draft, but he figures to be particularly bitter towards the Bay Area teams, who saw him display his gifts every Saturday for three years.

Sure, the 49ers had no credible receivers at all at the time, but why would they want a guy like Jackson when defensive end Kentwan Balmer and guard Chilo Rachal were on the draft board, right?

McNabb has completed a pass of 46 yards or longer for 10 straight games, with the majority of them going to Jackson.

He’s turned into the modern day Daryle Lamonica, aka “The Mad Bomber” and he’s been raining death from above.

Jackson also caught a couple of long ones earlier in the year from backup QB Kevin Kolb, when McNabb was injured, and he’s also scored on a 67-yard end around and two dazzling punt returns.

Singletary must have looked to the heavens and asked himself how his defense could possibly slow these guys down.

And then, like that, he got his answer.

In a town where usually the only thing frightful is the fans, Philadelphia has been deluged by a snow storm.

It’s going to be difficult for either team to throw the ball, and that definitely favors the 49ers, who’ll be content to pound Frank Gore into the line and take their chances.

At least they have a chance now.

Like Bing Crosby sang, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

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San Francisco 49ers Need to Make Statement Against Arizona Cardinals

It wasn’t supposed to go down this way for coach Mike Singletary and his San Francisco 49ers.

Not again.

Not for the seventh straight season.

He was certain, that after an off-season of roster tweaks, after the hiring an offensive coordinator that he hand-picked, and after guiding his charges through exhaustive minicamps and a brutal training camp, that he had a team of winners.

The way they outfought, outsmarted and outlasted the defending conference champion Arizona Cardinals—on the road no less—in their September 13 season opener only reinforced his belief.

This 49ers team would be different.

This would be the one that would turn the franchise’s fortunes around.

Singletary has always been a spiritual man, and well, you’ve probably heard that old saying by now, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”

First the 49ers lost a last second heartbreaker at Minnesota, where graybeard quarterback Brett Favre only got the chance to orchestrate his latest miracle finish because Singletary opted to ram running back Frank Gore into a nine man line for three straight plays, giving Favre the ball with a little less than two minutes to go.

Then the team got routed at home 45-10 by the mediocre Falcons, who, having had two weeks to prepare for the 49ers, scouted San Francisco’s offense well enough that they exposed quarterback Shaun Hill’s weak arm and rendered him completely ineffective.

Another sorry first half at Houston and that was it for Hill, whose chariot turned back into a pumpkin in a span of six quarters and just like that, he’ll never open the season as someone’s starting quarterback in the NFL ever again.

Alex Smith, San Francisco’s star-crossed first overall pick from 2005, took over the starting reins in the desperate hope that he would reinvigorate the moribund offense and save the team’s season.

Smith has played well, far better than anyone could’ve expected him to, but it still hasn’t been enough to make a difference.

No matter how well they’ve passed the ball of late, the running game has been stuck in mud all season, the defense has given up inopportune big plays, the receivers have had too many crucial drops, and the special teams units have been flat out awful.

The 49ers haven’t been blown off the field since that week five game against the Falcons, but they’ve only won two of their last seven games and everyone is getting tired of their close-but-no-cigar act.

When Singletary gazes across the field to the Cardinals sideline Monday night, at least a small part of him, a side he doesn’t reveal to the media, will have to be thinking, “That should be us.”

The Cardinals were terrible when these teams first met. Their defensive couldn’t cover ancient 49ers receiver Isaac Bruce let alone Vernon Davis. Their offensive line couldn’t run or pass block. Quarterback Kurt Warner—whom the 49ers pursued as a free agent in the off-season—looked beaten and washed up.

However since that game, which the 49ers won 20-16, the Cardinals shook themselves off, got their receivers healthy, discovered a running game, and have won eight of 11, including road victories at Jacksonville, Chicago, Seattle, and against the New York Giants.

Last week they showed everyone just how dangerous they are by walloping the mighty Vikings 30-17 in a game that wasn’t as close as the score.

The Cardinals have a trio of dangerous receivers, two running backs with over 500 rushing yards apiece, they protect Warner well, and their defense has playmakers on all three levels.

Not only will Arizona win their second straight NFC West crown, but they will clinch the division in Week 14 if they win on Monday at the ‘Stick.

On paper they’re a bit better than San Francisco, but not three games better.

Talent doesn’t seem to be the issue as much as experience, maturity, and luck.

And yeah, maybe coaching too.

Singletary and his players will have one last meaningful chance to show that regardless of what the standings say, that they’re every bit the team the Cardinals are and not some also-ran in the NFC West.

Not again.

Not for the seventh straight year.

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The 49ers Losing Battles, Winning the War with Alex Smith

The San Francisco 49ers lost another game on the road—this time 20-17 at Seattle, on kicker Olindo Mare’s 30-yard field goal at the gun—as is their wont, and the defeat, coupled with Arizona‘s surprisingly easy humiliation of the Vikings later in the evening just about assured that they will spend another season watching the playoffs rather than participating in them. 

However, while most fans and even columnists are doom-and-gloom and fatalistic about the team, and, while yesterday’s loss might feel like the most bitter one yet, this too shall pass.

Speaking of passing, quarterback Alex Smith’s seemingly overnight transformation from ginormous bust to top-15 NFL starter is not just the team’s biggest reason for optimism going forward, but also one of the league’s most unnoticed developments, as well.

The Titans‘ Vince Young is getting all the praise, and, deservedly so, for turning his flagging career around, but, over the past six-and-a-half games, Smith has played every bit as well as Young, if not better.

It might appear as though the world is ending for most 49ers‘ supporters since once again, for the seventh-straight year, they won’t make the postseason, but it says here that streak will end in 2010.

Here are two scenarios, for you, Joe 49ers Fan, that could’ve been available before the season started, and you take the one that looks more favorable in the long view.

This is Scenario A. 

The team plays Shaun Hill at quarterback all year, cobbles together nine ugly wins, finishes 9-7, wins its division, gets the tar beat out of them in the opening playoff game by some NFC East Wild Card team, such as Dallas or Philadelphia, and they still have no idea what their long-term answer is at quarterback.

Most likely, they’ll have to draft one, such as Notre Dame’s Jimmy Clausen or Texas’ Colt McCoy, in the first round next year, and spend the next two years grooming him so the team might—might—be competitive in 2012, if he’s not a bust and also if the world doesn’t collapse in on itself like in that John Cusack movie.

Does that sound fun, boys and girls?

Now, instead, I offer you Scenario B.

The team suffers through its growing pains as Alex Smith reignites his career, they break in two new, but promising, receivers in Josh Morgan and Michael Crabtree, they develop a radically different but effective offensive philosophy in midseason, they have better draft position for next April, and they don’t have to waste any time, money, or effort in drafting and developing a new quarterback.

When you put it that way, it’s a fairly easy decision, no?

Do the 49ers have holes? Absolutely.

As many holes as a block of Swiss cheese? Absolutely not.

The team needs to find a couple of maulers to help out Frank Gore for the running game, a defensive end to bookend Justin Smith, a full-time return man, and a fleet, yet physical corner.

It’s tempting to say the secondary needs wholesale personnel changes, but it’s also overly dramatic.

Dashon Goldson is in his first year as a starting free safety, and Shawntae Spencer is only one season removed from surgery to repair a torn ACL.

They both figure to play better next season.

The pass rush from the front seven has been inconsistent, but the 49ers are tied for seventh in the league with 30 sacks.

The troubling aspect of that stat is that 16 of those sacks have come in three games, meaning that they’ve only mustered 14 quarterback takedowns in the other nine.

They are starting to blitz with more regularity of late, and the 11 sacks they’ve registered the past two games is a decent indication that defensive coordinator Greg Manusky should’ve been dialing them up a long time ago.

So there you have it. 2009 will go down as a learning year.

Both the players and coaches learned what they’re good at and what they have to improve upon.

Some answers can be found within, and some have to be imported by virtue of the draft and the free agent market.

At least from here, it looks like the 49ers are set up with the best quarterback situation in the division.

Arizona’s Kurt Warner, if he doesn’t retire this season, then surely 2010 will be it for him.

Seattle’s Matt Hasselbeck is injury-prone and a shell of his old self. Ditto for St. Louis and Marc Bulger.

Both of those teams will probably be looking at the draft for their next franchise saviors.

Already, the 49ers are a step ahead.

Fans have to stay patient.

Slowly but surely, the team is marching in the right direction. 

Good things are happening here.

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For Alex Smith and the 49ers, the Seahawks are Always Special

The San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks have only been division-mates for the past eight years, yet for some odd reason, whenever anything seminal has happened to the red and gold of late, Seattle has been directly involved.

Take for example, 49ers coach Mike Singletary’s maiden voyage into the murky waters of Figurehead Lagoon.

It came on October 26, 2008 against the Seahawks.

Seattle was a decrepit outfit back then, decimated by injuries—much as they are now—and off to a 1-5 start. The 49ers were no great team themselves at 2-5, but they had just fired the man everyone thought was the problem, coach Mike Nolan, and the Seahawks at Candlestick seemed like the perfect foils to get the Singletary Era off to a rousing start.

Well, “Coach Sing” made the day memorable all right, but mostly for his antics on the sideline and in the postgame presser.

The game itself was a dog, and the Seahawks breezed to a 34-13 rout.

That afternoon gave us the “I want winners!” speech, and just might have accidentally kick-started tight end Vernon Davis’ own fascinating journey into the land of maturity. But at the time it was just another loss by another in-over-his-head interim coach and no one thought much of it.  

Go back a bit further—to September 30, 2007.

This was the day that Alex Smith—young starting quarterback with potential, turned into Alex Smith—galactic bust.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t because of what Smith did, really. He came into the game against the Seahawks having led the team to a 2-1 start, even though he hadn’t started the season all that well statistically.

Very early in the game though, his throwing shoulder was crushed beneath the 300 pound body of Seahawks defensive tackle Rocky Bernard and it looked to be completely separated from its joint.

Nolan insisted that the injury wasn’t as bad as it looked and after three weeks of rest, Smith was basically bullied back onto the field, his manhood on the line as his coach questioned his toughness in front of the team.

Smith winced his way through three poor performances, including a disastrous game on Nov. 12, where he and the team managed only six first downs and were 1-of-12 on third down conversions in a 24-0 beat-down at, wouldn’t you know it, Seattle.

He was shelved for good after that. His shoulder was operated on by Dr. James Andrews and Smith was placed on injured reserve.

The surgery didn’t quite take and Smith required a second operation, which ended his 2008 season before it started and raised legitimate concerns that his career, such as whether or not he would play again.

Go back further still, to November 19, 2006.

The Niners, with Nolan at coach and Norv Turner at offensive coordinator, were off to their annual 2-5 start, but low and behold the defense strung some fine performances together and Smith capped off a hat trick of consecutive wins with a good day against the Seahawks, completing 19-of-25 passes for 163 yards and one touchdown, while scoring the first rushing touchdown of his career as well.

It would be the first of two times he’d beat the Seahawks that year, and he’d finish both games with a passer rating over 100.

San Francisco was back to .500 and “things were happening” as they say.

We know how that turned out.

Now fast forward to the present.

The Niners again have the Seahawks in front of them.

Smith comes into the game, at Seattle, where he was born, playing as well and as confidently as he ever has.

The “Raye-gun offense,” so coined for offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye’s distaste for the term “spread,” is as catered to Smith’s strengths as any pro system he’s played in. 

Again, the 49ers have a chance to even their won-loss ledger, and again they have a chance to control their destiny.

It couldn’t have happened against any other team.

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San Francisco 49ers Defense: Ignored By the Press, Abused By Their Opponents

Ask the average 49ers fan on the Stairmaster why the team has a disappointing 4-6 record, and the answer you’re most likely to get besides “Who the hell are you?” and “You’re really bad at small talk,” is going to be…

A) Jimmy Raye, that dastardly stubborn, old-fashioned offensive coordinator of ours, or

B) Alex Smith, whom the team plainly refuses to accept is a bust, or

C) Mike Singletary, the very personification of sound and fury signifying nothing, or

D) The Offensive Line, who all surely dabble in bullfighting in the off-season, or

E) All of the Above.

Meanwhile the fellas on the other side of the ball, the defense, continue to tiptoe on by, in “don’t mind little ol’ us” fashion, smiling their Cheshire cat smiles, perfectly content to be as anonymous as they are subpar.

It is assumed that the defense is the strength of the team because Mike Singletary, the coach, made his bones there as a player and more so because he says it is.

The reality is that the defense is the strength of the team in that it’s less awful than the offense, but default praise and backhanded compliments are hardly the stuff on which championships are built.

While the jury is certainly out on what—if anything—”Coach Sing” understands of the offensive game, no one questions his defensive pedigree, even though it appears from the outside that the extent of his tactical acumen boils down to “We got to hit ’em in the mouth.”

Unfortunately “Hits on Mouth” is not a recognized NFL statistic, so we really have no idea how successful the defense has been in that regard, but the crude numerical tools that we do have at our disposal tell us that, like Singletary himself, the defense has been more bark than bite.

The run defense, despite the occasional gashing they’ve suffered against the Chris Johnsons and Ryan Grants of the world, is pretty solid, allowing 94.7 yards per game, good for sixth in the league.

With an interior trio of nosetackle Aubrayo Franklin and middle linebackers Patrick Willis and Takeo Spikes, this isn’t too much of a surprise.

However the pass defense is ranked 30th, ahead of just the Titans and the Lions, and allowing 256.1 yards per, and given what they have to work with, that isn’t much of a surprise either.

While it’s natural to blame the secondary for their poor coverage, the lion’s share of the blame must fall to the front seven for not putting enough heat on opposing quarterbacks.

The 49ers have only 19 sacks on the season, which ranks them 22nd there, and consequently they’re allowing 42.7 percent of third downs against them to be converted, which is 28th worst in the league.

Without a pass rush, a defense simply can’t get off the field.

Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers came into last week’s game having been sacked 41 times in nine games, the highest total in the league. Yet against the 49ers he wasn’t touched, let alone sacked, the entire first half and threw for 274 yards the first two quarters as the Packers breezed to a 23-3 halftime lead.

In a 3-4 defense, the two outside ‘backers are guys expected to generate a lot of heat, but Parys Haralson and Manny Lawson have combined for just 5.5 sacks, or about half of what Pittsburgh’s James Harrison has on his own.

Defensive end Justin Smith meanwhile, the guy they count on to wreck havoc the most, has but one sack on the year.

Smith is getting plenty of pressures to be sure, but he just doesn’t seem to have the burst to “get home” as they say in the biz.

That’s not to say the secondary is totally blameless. Star corner Nate Clements got benched for his poor play before injuring his shoulder at Indianapolis. His replacement, Tarell Brown, will ride the pine in favor of Dre’ Bly Sunday against Jacksonville.

Shawntae Spencer, the other corner, also gets beat on a regular basis and misses way too many tackles to compound the damage.

Of course we can’t forget safety Michael Lewis, who never met a tight end he could cover.

It’s ironic that Singletary, who played on such a physical, in-your-face, blitzing 46 defense with the Bears, is coaching such a soft, bend-but-don’t-break outfit now.

The 49ers rarely blitz, and have their corners play so far off receivers that you’d think they’re playing with four safeties. Apparently “Physical with an ‘F'” doesn’t extend to the corners who don’t press.

Add it all up and what you have is a team whose offense can only move the ball with a finesse shotgun passing attack and whose defense plays scared when it doesn’t play dead.

One of these days us media folk will ignore the team’s plentiful offensive issues for a minute and get around to asking Singletary on a Rehash Monday why his guys can’t stop anybody.

Then the coach will do what teams have been doing all too easily against the 49ers—dodge and duck and evade our questions, running toward open field.

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49ers Smith Can Still Prove He Was the Right Choice Over Rodgers

Suppose some stranger comes up to you on the street and asks you, the devoted 49ers fan in your throwback Joe Montana jersey, who’s better: Aaron Rodgers or Alex Smith?

Almost reflexively you answer Rodgers. I mean, really, you don’t even think about it for more than a second.

Rodgers has the better numbers, he’s had more immediate success, he’s never been called a bust, and he was picked within the top three rounds in your fantasy draft.

Smith, by comparison, has a career 12-21 record, has never finished a season with more touchdown passes than interceptions, and wasn’t taken at all in most drafts because he opened the season as San Francisco’s backup.

In 33 career starts Smith has never thrown for more than 293 yards in any game. In 25 starts Rodgers has exceeded that figure eight times.

The two men will forever be linked by the 2005 draft when the 49ers, with the first pick, chose Smith out of the University of Utah, over local boy Rodgers, who went to Cal.

Yet while their media-driven rivalry seems on the surface to be as one-sided as that of a hammer and a nail, the debate isn’t as cut-and-dried as the numbers suggest.

For one thing, the two men have had to deal with entirely different circumstances.

Smith was thrown, almost immediately, into his team’s starting lineup—an offense completely alien to him—and surrounded by players who were undeniably terrible.

Remember, the 49ers didn’t have the first overall pick in the 2005 draft by accident. They were a wretched outfit in 2004, with a roster so bereft of talent that they resembled an expansion team.

When Mike Nolan and Scot McCloughan took over the team in 2005, they were faced with a reclamation project every bit as daunting as what coach Jim Schwartz and general manager Martin Mayhew face now with the Detroit Lions.

Their running back was Kevan Barlow. The top receivers were Cedrick Wilson and Brandon Lloyd. The offensive line was a mess and while there were some names on defense (most notably a fading Bryant Young), their leading tacklers were Derek Smith and Jeff Ulbrich.

Not only did Alex Smith have to take his licks while learning then-offensive coordinator Mike McCarthy’s version of the West Coast Offense (after masterfully running the spread under Urban Meyer at Utah), but he had to adjust to a whole new offense again the next season when McCarthy got hired as the Packers head coach.

And then a new offense in 2007.

And 2008.

And 2009.

The 49ers go through offensive coordinators the way you or I go through underwear, and for similar reasons.

Smith also hasn’t been helped any by having to deal with coaches who are gleefully and pathologically ignorant of the quarterback position.

Nolan not only constricted Smith with his Cheney-level conservative game plans, but nearly ruined his career with his callous negligence, ordering his young quarterback to play with a separated shoulder in 2007.

Only now, after two operations, has Smith regained his arm strength.

The current 49ers regime of coach Mike Singletary and offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye, meanwhile, only lets Smith do what he does best—pass out of the shotgun—when the team is behind.

Anytime the team is winning, their “formula” is to have the quarterback play with two hands tied behind his back and ram the ball pointlessly into nine man fronts to avoid potentially messy turnovers.

Smith has started three-and-a-half games this season and had just one stinker, against Vince Young and the plucky Titans. In his other action he played Peyton Manning to a draw at Indy, was less awful than Jay Cutler against the Bears, and accomplished as much as Matt Schaub at Houston, in half the time.

Smith hasn’t been great by any means, but he’s trying to get by while breaking in two green receivers in Michael Crabtree and Josh Morgan, and a third one in Isaac Bruce who needed to retire last January.

It is, as they say, “a work in progress.”

Contrast what Smith walked into with Rodgers’ situation.

Rodgers had three years to sit on the bench and learn at Green Bay.

The offense he got drafted into wasn’t all that different than what he ran at Cal under Jeff Tedford.

He’s had stability with his coaching staff, and not just with McCarthy. Offensive coordinator Joe Philbin has held that post for three years and quarterbacks coach Tom Clements has been on the job for four.

McCarthy said during his conference call with Bay Area reporters that his experience with Smith shaped his philosophy with young quarterbacks, and that he is a strong proponent of the “sit-and-watch” method.

That sounds well and good when you have Brett Favre on your roster. It’s not as though the 49ers pushed Steve Young out the door to make way for the Alex Smith era.

If the only other quarterbacks on Green Bay’s roster were Tim Rattay, Ken Dorsey, and Cody Pickett, then Rodgers would’ve been thrown right into the fire too.

Also, despite the flashy numbers he’s put up, Rodgers hasn’t been nearly as successful as the analysts make him out to be.

In 2008, his first year at the helm, Rodgers led the Packers to a 6-10 record despite being given virtually the same roster to work with that Favre piloted to a 13-3 mark and an NFC Championship Game appearance the season prior.

He repeatedly folded under the pressure and the Packers lost games by 3, 3, 1, 4, 3, 4, and 3 points.

This season he’s already lost the two biggest games on the schedule—against the Vikings—and in the process has made both McCarthy and general manager Ted Thompson look bad in choosing him over Favre.

He’s also lost to the previously winless Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Packers, preseason darlings to come out of the NFC, are just 5-4 and on the fringe of playoff contention.

While Rodgers has been lauded for his 17-to-5 touchdown-to-interception ratio, he has shown little pocket awareness and taken far more sacks than his beleagured offensive line deserves to be blamed for.

Rodgers’ defenders point out that taking a sack is a smarter play then throwing a pick, as Favre often did with the Packers. But the smarter play still would be to throw the ball away, or to a hot receiver, or to see the blitz coming and audible into a better play.

Indeed, Rodgers has been better than Smith thus far in their nascent careers, but the gap isn’t as wide as people think, and Rodgers has been given every possible advantage while Smith has had to overcome obstacle after obstacle.

Rodgers couldn’t overcome Favre’s ghost in the two biggest games of his career, so it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see him come up short once more against the other quarterback he’ll always be compared to.

This argument hasn’t been settled.

Not yet.

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49ers-Bears: Jay Cutler Saves the San Francisco 49ers’ Season, for a Week

The 49ers won 10-6 over the Bears last night in a game so ugly it should’ve been played in Afghanistan.

No matter how many times coach Mike Singletary, offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye and fullback Moran Norris (otherwise known as the Axis of Ugh) conspired to hand the game to a Chicago outfit that sure could’ve used the win, Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, generous to a fault, said, “No really, you’ve been such gracious hosts, I insist you take the W.”

How many times could the 49ers have lost this game? Let us count the ways.

They got their only touchdown of the game when Bears receiver Devin Hester slipped while making a cut, and corner Tarell Brown took the gift interception back 51 yards to set up Frank Gore’s 11-yard draw to paydirt.

In the third quarter, the team went for it on fourth down at midfield when they could’ve pinned the Bears deep and they didn’t pick up an inch on an Alex Smith sneak that was anything but sneaky.

Early in the fourth quarter, safety Mark Roman clearly bumped Bears tight end Kellen Davis before snaring Cutler’s fourth interception of the evening. A pass interference call there would’ve set the Bears up inside the San Francisco 30.

In San Francisco’s subsequent possession, Gore fumbled at the end of a long run and was fortunate that receiver Josh Morgan was in the right place at the right time so the team could milk a field goal out of the drive.

Finally, the team chose to punt from Chicago’s 34 rather than to kick a field goal that would’ve pushed their lead to seven. Andy Lee—surely not used to kicking from that far in—booted the ball too deep for a touchback, and a net gain of only 14 yards in field position.

Again, as we’ve seen multiple times this season pretty much whenever the team has a second half lead, Singletary and Raye put their quarterback in a straight jacket. Smith certainly wasn’t very good in the first half, but he was moving the ball at times and he deserved a chance to play the full 60 minutes.

At least he was checking down or eating the ball when he had to, instead of throwing it up for grabs like Cutler did.

We saw plenty of the two back offense with lead blocker Moran Norris in the second half, and by now the entire football watching nation knows that whenever Norris is in the game, a three-and-out is a mortal lock.

The Bears rightly put everyone and their mothers at the line of scrimmage and again Gore got stuffed, over and over and over again. Smith only got to pass on 3rd-and-long and even then the calls were safe, and not really designed to do anything but take another forty seconds off the clock and hand Chicago the football.

If any Niners fan out there is wondering what the coaches really think of their team, a telling sequence late in the second quarter should provide all the answers. 

Up 7-0, Roman tackled Bears running back Matt Forte on a draw for a measly two yard gain, setting up a 3rd-and-8 at Chicago’s own 19-yard line.

There was 1:47 left on the clock when the whistle blew, meaning that if San Francisco called time out there and stopped the Bears on third down, they’d have plenty of time, and likely decent field position, to use their two-minute offense to set up another score.

The 49ers have been excellent in the two minute drill with Smith the past two weeks, scoring touchdowns both times.

Thirty-one other coaches in the NFL call a time out in that situation.

The 49ers let the clock keep running. The Bears went on to convert the third down and would eventually get a field goal to go into half down 7-3.

One could argue that Singletary didn’t call the time out not because he didn’t believe in the offense, but rather because he wasn’t confident that his defense could stop a 3rd-and-8.

In either case it means that he doesn’t his team, and if a coach doesn’t believe in his guys, it means that sooner rather than later they won’t believe in themselves either.

It’s just the latest in a running list of Singletary saying one thing and doing another.

Don’t tell me Mike, show me.

Ultimately San Francisco got the win, barely, because Cutler threw a pass behind tight end Greg Olson, to his right, when Olsen was heading left.

Usually a team with a 5-1 advantage in the turnover column doesn’t have to eek out a win, but as long as their coaches are this meek and afraid, every fourth quarter the rest of the way is destined to be a nail biter. 

In the end the 49ers won and the Bears lost but what does it really matter? Both teams are 4-5 and they might as well be 4-50.

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San Francisco 49ers Need Less Tell Me, More Show Me

Those of you who follow the 49ers with the fervor one usually reserves for teams that are, uh, you know, good , probably watched, or at least heard about, 49ers coach Mike Singletary’s lengthy exchange last Monday with a local reporter.

Was the scribe grandstanding and trying to make himself a part of the story?

Absolutely.

Did Singletary take his monologue a bit too far, regardless?

There’s no doubt.

It’s ironic, for a man who’s got posters and billboards of himself plastered all across town next to his trademark quote “Don’t tell me, show me,” that lately all Singletary and the rest of his under-performing team are doing is talking, not acting.

Not to say Singletary’s tactical acumen has been questioned or anything, but in the media trailer these days you can hear the scuttlebutt of Wizard of Oz comparisons when “Coach Sing” is brought up, and it’s not because he wears ruby red-colored sneakers.

After all, this is a man who, between his Hall-of-Fame playing career and his current gig as “a leader of men,” dabbled in motivational speaking.

Fortune 500 companies would hire him to give pep talks to cubicle dwellers.

It’s impossible to argue that “do what I say because I knocked the crap out of Phil Simms” is a bit more inspiring than “I live in a van down by the river,” but the Singletary clan decided to move on into coaching anyway.

The man is good for two or three compelling quotes per week, but there is a growing concern that he’s better at filling up our notebooks than he is at actually giving his players something of substance in the games.

Weeks ago, Singletary declared that he doesn’t care what people write about him or what adjectives were describing him, as long as we don’t call him a losing coach.

Well, his career record is now 8-9 and the team is on a downward spiral.

The coach keeps insisting to anyone who will listen that he’s got a good group of players who have the potential to do great things. But until they do it, it’s just talk.

And it’s not just the coach who’s been more bark than bite this week, either.

Tight end Vernon Davis, hardly the bashful type himself, took the opportunity on Tuesday to rip Chicago’s front seven, particularly the defensive line, and predicted that he and his teammates would “destroy them” when the Niners square off against the equally free-falling Bears Thursday night.

Davis went on to say that he doesn’t respect anyone on the defensive line besides end Adewale Ogunleye, and that his guys should be able to “handle” Chicago’s linebackers.

Even in the best of times, giving opponents bulletin board material is a bad idea, but when you’re in the midst of a four-game losing streak and you toss around statements like that, you sound delusional at best, and flat-out dumb at worst. 

Davis has played at a Pro-Bowl level this season, but he’s made a career of saying and doing foolish things. Every time you think to yourself that the light bulb finally switched on for him and he’s grown up, he goes out and does something like this.

It’s disappointing to see, particularly from a team captain.

Finally there’s the case of Alex Smith, who’s career resurgence hit a speed bump with a miserable four-turnover game versus a bad Tennessee team. 

Smith defended his play on Tuesday and said his reads and decision-making were sound. He said the two deflected interceptions he threw were unfortunate job hazards.

Both Singletary and offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye were complimentary of Smith and of the offense in general, with the former saying that it was “one of the best offensive performances we’ve had since I’ve been here,” and the latter claiming that, “without the turnovers, it would have been a different outcome.”

Yeah, and if my aunt could count to 21 she’d be my uncle.

If this is the best they can expect from Smith and the best he expects for himself, then they might as well warm up rookie Nate Davis and see what he’s got. Throwing three interceptions to the 32nd-ranked pass defense in the NFL is inexcusable, period.

For Smith or his coaches to pretend that such an outing is acceptable, or even worse encouraging, is a bad omen for this franchise. Basically, it’s a lot of moral victory nonsense, and we all know that Mike Singletary is not a moral victory kind of guy.

The signs on the bus told me so.

The Good Ship 49er seems to be surrounded on all sides by icebergs. They haven’t shown any signs of being able to navigate their way out of this mess, but theoretically, it’s still possible.

Doing it on the podium is one thing, doing it on the field is quite another.

 

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This One Is On The Players…

For seven games we in the local media have had a lot of fun—and a lot of easy columns—at Jimmy Raye’s expense.

We’ve ridiculed the 49ers ancient offensive coordinator for his conservative game plans, his over-reliance on the two back offense, his reluctance to put his quarterbacks in the shotgun, and for his stubborn refusal to admit that the team cannot run, not even a little bit, against eight man fronts.

Not to say we’ve been using Raye as a scapegoat or anything, but if “Pin the tail on Jimmy Raye” was a carnival attraction for San Francisco fans and sportswriters, we’d all be even poorer than we already are, and Raye would be one seriously sore fella by now.

That’s why it’s so important to understand that Sunday’s disappointing 34-27 home loss to the previously 1-6 Tennessee Titans had absolutely nothing to do with Raye and even less with his boss, head coach Mike Singletary.

The game plans were sound, the execution was not.

Or to put it another way, “It’s the players, stupid.”

It’s fashionable across the league for coaches to publicly take the blame for losses. Philadelphia’s Andy Reid, to cite one example, has a stock answer after setback, where he says, “This one’s on me, I have to put the players in better position to make plays.”

Singletary, however, does not believe in this approach.

“We have to play smarter, we have to execute better,” he said.

And since Singletary doesn’t play anymore, by “we” he means “they.”

Indeed Singletary and Raye finally arrived at the same conclusion that the rest of us had made by mid-September, that fullback Moran Norris is the football equivalent of the Grim Reaper.

Norris was only on the field for seven snaps on Sunday as the 49ers stuck mostly with the two tight end package with Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker, or a three receiver look that started off with Michael Crabtree, Isaac Bruce, Josh Morgan, and ended with Crabtree, Jason Hill, and Brandon Jones.

Quarterback Alex Smith dropped back 51 times, often out of the shotgun, and the team only had 18 designed running plays.

It was a game plan built to take advantage of the worst pass defense in the league and as both Singletary and the players would say afterward, it was mostly successful.

Then again, coaches and players gushing about yardage after committing four costly turnovers (which the Titans gleefully turned into 24 points) gives off that, “well aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, what’d you think of the play?” vibe.

Smith again brought back the memories of “Bad Alex” with his second half performance, in which he had a third quarter fumble and two killer interceptions on consecutive series in the fourth quarter.

Once again Smith – who had a first half interception as well—showed that hasn’t progressed to the point where the team can count on him to be an asset.

He stared down his receivers, held the ball too long on some of his drops, forced the ball into coverage numerous times, and just wasn’t very accurate on throws that weren’t check downs.

Smith was solely to blame for at least two of his interceptions and was partially responsible for all four turnovers.

“They gave a lot of looks,” he said. “They play a lot of different coverages. You’re going to see an assortment of pressures and coverages and all kinds of stuff, things that are unorthodox and that not a lot of other teams do. They’re unique.”

The first six teams on the Titans schedule certainly didn’t find Tennessee’s secondary all that flummoxing, so you have to wonder how much Smith’s head will be spinning when he plays someone of note.

Of course the defense bears some responsibility in this affair as well. They never came close to confusing the utterly-confusable Vince Young, and their heralded run defense wasn’t nearly as stout enough to stop the speedy Chris Johnson.

Give both Johnson and his offensive coordinator Mike Heimerdinger a lot of credit. They quickly surmised that running up the middle against the 49ers trio of nosetackle Aubrayo Franklin and inside ‘backers Patrick Willis and Takeo Spikes was going to be rough sledding, so they made the adjustment to attack the edges.

Lo and behold, they found outside linebackers Parys Haralson and Manny Lawson far more accommodating and by the time he was done, Johnson had rampaged the Niners to the tune of 135 yards (and two scores) on the ground and another 25 from three receptions.

When staked with a 20-17 lead after a 15 play, 9:45 scoring drive that culminated with kicker Joe Nedney’s 25-yard go ahead field goal, the defense couldn’t make it hold up, quickly surrendering the lead for good on the Titans’ own eight play march down the field.

Tennessee’s drive was highlighted by two big plays, a 41-yard burst by Johnson down the left sideline and a 33-yard leaping grab by receiver Justin Gage, but they didn’t take the lead for good until Johnson out-raced Haralson to the pylon on a 4th-and-inches play from the two.

“I don’t want to say anything until I watch film as to why he got loose,” said Willis afterward, “but I know that he can run. If you give him what he’s looking for, which is the edge, he can turn and run like there’s no tomorrow.”

The Titans outsmarted, outhustled, outran and outhit the 49ers (something like a dozen guys showed up on the postgame injury report) and most of all the team was just outplayed, in all three phases.

Even their punt returner, the aforementioned Jones, was terrible.

A promising 3-1 start has withered away to 3-5 at mid-season and before they have a chance to blink the Niners have to face the equally downtrodden Chicago Bears Thursday at the ‘Stick. 

With such a short turnaround there won’t be much time for either team to put together too comprehensive of a game plan, so once again, it’ll be the players who decide it.

We’ve all seen how that’s working out.

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Smith vs. Young: Redemption Bowl Or Joint Fact-Finding Mission?

Lest you think the man impervious to hyperbole or of such resolute moral character he would never deign to fib, 49ers coach Mike Singletary opened his Wednesday press conference by claiming Sunday’s opponent, the beleaguered Tennessee Titans, are “a good football team,” and added, “but we feel we’re a good football team too.” 

That first statement is a blatant lie, unless it’s put into the context of all football teams across the country. Yes indeed, “The Flaming Thumbtacks” would be heavy favorites against all Pop Warner and high school clubs, and most of the college ones as well.

If we’re limiting the search window to include just NFL teams, however, then 1-6 is 1-6. Such a start would trouble fans of basketball, hockey, and even baseball teams, and their seasons last so long that I’m almost positive that pitchers and catchers are due to report to camp next Tuesday.

1-6 in the NFL means the season’s already effectively over, and anyone with a speck of common sense is going to ditch the team concept (which, hello, got them to 1-6) to ensure that they can put the best possible resume together for future employers.

In other words the players will be looking out for themselves, even more noticeably than they have been.

Tennessee’s season, which officially went kaput with a resounding 59-0 thud at Foxboro against the Patriots, can now only be salvaged in the big picture if Vince Young, their enigmatic quarterback, uses the final meaningless ten games to show his coach, Jeff Fisher, and his boss, Bud Adams, his career is salvageable and there is no need to draft a franchise savior next April.

Young certainly started off on the right foot last week, when he completed 15-of-18 mostly safe passes for 125 yards and a touchdown in the team’s surprising 30-13 rout of Jacksonville.

While Young has taken sharp criticism for everything ranging from his throwing mechanics, to his resolve and even his how-looooow-can-you-go Wonderlic score, the team has invested too much hope (read: money) in him to give up already, especially when they have literally nothing else to play for.

In poker parlance, the Titans are “paying for information” about Young. The price they’re paying to find out whether he’s matured and developed into someone they can build around or not is blowout losses if he’s terrible.

Since they were terrible already without him, it’s not much of a risk at all. At least by January they’ll know, one way or the other.

And this brings us back to the second part of Singletary’s statement, about the 49ers being good, too. A 3-4 record would ordinarily suggest otherwise, but the NFC West being what it is, San Francisco is still in contention for the division crown, just a game behind the Arizona Cardinals.

They have their own reclamation project at quarterback in Alex Smith, who has probably strung together the best four consecutive quarters of his career if you count the second half at Houston and the first half at Indy. Sure, the team technically lost both games, but Smith has come out smelling like a rose so far.

He’s teased fans with his newfound proficiency in a hurry-up shotgun three-receiver offense, but he’s playing for coaches who are loathe to use it in extended doses for reasons they’d rather keep to themselves. 

Instead, the men with the headsets seem rather enamored with fullback Moran Norris, even though his presence on the field is the personification of offensive death.

Though they still have playoff aspirations, the 49ers are very much in the same boat with Smith as the Titans are with Young. They not only want to know, they want you to know they want to know.

Also, in a rare twist, they want you to know what they’ll know when they know it, when usually coaches would rather use a scouring pad for a loofah than divulge to the outside world what they really think about anything.

If Smith bombs out in these next nine games with the talent he’s got around him, it’s over for him, at least in San Francisco. He’s got his health, he’s got playmakers in Vernon Davis, Michael Crabtree, and Frank Gore, and he’s got a defense that will keep him in games.

He’s officially out of excuses, even though Jimmy Raye is the fifth different offensive coordinator of Smith’s five-year career. Suppose Raye gets the blame for everything and the team is forced to replace him with some other schmo. Then what do you have?

A sixth different offensive coordinator in six years, and the cycle repeating itself once more.

It’s all about now for Smith and he simply has to get it done, playoffs or bust—as in he’s got to lead the team to that fabled 17th game of the season, or he’s a bust.

So far, Smith and Young have had remarkably similar careers. Smith has started 31 games to Young’s 30. Both have thrown for 22 touchdowns and suffered 33 interceptions.

Young, however, is 19-11 as a starter. Smith is 11-20.

Smith is going to need to come out on top in this one, and he’ll need to do so convincingly to save the 49ers season from being as irrelevant as Tennessee’s.

The fans can only boo the offensive coordinator so much.

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