Well, the pink slips are starting to fly out of team HQs around the country. Cleveland beat the holiday rush and fired Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller Greg Chudzinski yesterday, presumably to protect others in the organization from being dragged into the Cleveland sewers and eaten alive. The next ex-coach will be hired any minute now.
No surprise to anyone, Mike Shanahan and his entire staff were jettisoned by Daniel Snyder and his band of renown. I feel bad for RG III as this revolving door of coaches and FO staff will start spinning at breakneck speed for the next few years while the team that shall not be named out loud continues on its merry way to mediocrity.
Leslie Neilson Frazier is out in Minnesota despite their playoff appearance last year, and the return of AP. His struggle was just figuring out who to play at QB, Ponder battled injuries, Cassell played well some of the time (and awful at other times), and Josh Freeman (urk) pretty much puked on his shoes every chance he got. Revolving QBs rarely works, and it failed miserably in Minnesota. Plus the defense went south big time in a division that was soft to say the least.
May the Schwartz be with you won’t be with Deetroit anymore. He guided a very solid team to very underwhelming results during his tenure in Ford City. Although he did take over a 0-16 team, they certainly didn’t get enough out of their offensive weapons, and their defense, while tough, shoots itself in the feet regularly with dumb penalties and mental lapses. The Lions collapse was especially gruesome as they had the division lead at 6-3 after beating the Bears in Chi-town and having a relatively easy schedule to close out the season. They summarily lost 6 of their last 7, including losses to the Vikes, the Bucs, the Giants, and the Ravens. That’s some serious suckage.
Perennial schoolyard bully Greg Schiano was kicked to the curb in Tampa like the drity dog he is, along with his GM Mark Dominick. They started under the curse of Josh Freeman, cut him, and flailed around looking for a QB while the staggering losses piled up. Mike Glennon actually emerged from the Tampa Bay muck to look fairly decent. After going 0-8 to start the year, TB won 4 of 5, but closed the year losing their last 4.
The Texans, of course, fired their HC Gary Kubiak 3 weeks after collapsing on the field after suffering a stroke during a game vs Indy. “how ya feeling, coach?” “Good. Getting better.” ” Oh, by the way, you’re fired!”
And so it goes. By the time today ends, I’m sure there will be a few more (Dennis Allen? Mike Munchak? Tom not-so-Terrific Coughlin?) Perennial moron Jerry Jones is sticking with (for now) Jason Garrett as his sock puppett, uh head coach, although he did get rid of Lane Kiffin’s dad the full Monty as the Dallas DC. Frankly, since they are local, but I still don;t give much of a rat’s ass, I think the Raiders should stick with Dennis Allen. They are desperately in need of SOME continuity, and with Dirty Al gone, Prince Valiant must try to engender some team unity as they dig themselves out from re-un-dead Al’s pit of contract and draft choice hell.
So, who’s next?
San Francisco 49ers Forever 
All the Niners losses this year were against teams that made it to the playoffs. At least two of the losses were winnable. Carolina and NO.
Yeah, wonder if Roman gets a shot as HC somewhwere. I wouldn’t miss him too much.
Kevin I’m reposting you last post on the old thread.
Here it is:
Irish Kevin says:
December 30, 2013 at 9:13 am (Edit)
My opinion is that for the last 8 years everyone and thery mother knows the Niners rely heavilly on Gore to get the job done. Nolan, Singletary, and now Harbaugh. They get the lead and go straight to the run. 5 mins into the 2nd quarter and they run the ball 3 straight times, twice with Gore and once with Hunter. They got 0 yardage and used up a whopping 3 mins. Oh yeah those three plays ate up clock time. What did that prove?? What Harbaugh should have seen from that is the running game was going no where fast. So he should have gone back to the pass and scored some points to put the game away. Walsh did not leave points on the field. Manning does not leave points on the field. Mike Holmgren did not leave points on the field. The list of coaches that put teams away is long.
Reply
unca_chuck says:
December 30, 2013 at 10:51 am (Edit)
Kevin, Kappy threw 34 passes, his 2nd highest total this season. And we ran 23 times.
I was OK with the playcalling until 3rd down. That is my biggest issue with the play calling. We go jumbo, thus forcing the defense to pack the line and then we try to run against it. Dumb. Put in 4 WRs and spread the formation on 3rd and short. Play action. Or even a run. SAs long as the D doesn’t have 8-9 guuys up close you can run. Forcing the D to pack the line and running against it is ludicrous.
Besides, the 1st drive in the 2nd quarter was 2 incomplete passes and a 4 yard Kappy run. I certainly understand the Niners trying to establish the run. And they did have a good drive stall in the 2nd quarter when Mr. Clean missed a 24 yard FG to close the 1st half.
The point being, there are times whe you run. This team has proven for the past 9 years that a 3rd and 1 run up the middle in the jumbo package rarely works.
Niners schedule next season.
Saints AGAIN at the Dome…
http://blog.sfgate.com/49ers/2013/12/30/a-look-at-the-49ers-2014-schedule/
Raiduhs should keep the GM and HC one more year. They had no players worth a darn this year. What team starts an undrafted QB? A bad team. Very bad. Alabama would give them a hard time. Didn’t they have $20 million or some such they were paying guys that weren’t even in the building? Darth Al left that organization in shambles. It’ll take 5 years total to dig out of that hole. George Halas and Lombardi combined couldn’t win more than 5 games with that squad. Allen won 4…
Yeah, the problem with the Raiders is they actually won some games and gave the fans some hope that this year wouldn’t be flat horrific. In the endm they reverted to form, but yes, they are in an untenable situation where they have to build through the draft almost exclusively with all the bad deals floating around the building. Kinda like the Niners in 2005 . . .
Yeah Chuck, I can go with that. the screen to James worked really well on one play, I want to say he got a first down and more out of that.
Fact is, we’ve had trouble converting third downs all season no matter what play is called. The two 3rd and 1 and one 4th and 1 yesterday used similar formations but were different plays. No one cares. Let’s just call it more stupid runs up the middle that always fail and join the chorus of the ignorant. It’s more a problem of execution but that would mean understanding a play and figuring out who got beat or blew an assignment and that’s too much work. Much easier to just say “I knew what was coming so of course it failed.” Never mind that’s not what happened, it sounds like you were paying attention anyway.
So what you believe is that giving it to Gore 25-35 times and he breaks one of those for a huge gain, touchdown, whatever it is worth it. Most if not all teams that see see the 49ers formation know when a run is coming. So they do not go to there standard 3-4 or 4-3. They put 8 men up front and leave there corners to handly any passing. So that means that more than likely someone is going to break through the offensive line to stop Gore. You are the one who should watch the games more closely. When there are too many defensive linemen to block that does not mean someone missed an assignment or got beat. Football 101
2°F high in Green Bay today.
18°F high, 20% chance of snow forecast Sunday – weather.com.
Spring is coming to Green Bay!
Dan Reeves had to go in Denver because he would not kiss Elway’s ass. Shanahan then was only too happy to offer his services as ass-kisser-in-chief. Now Shanahan gets the boot in DC under much the same circumstances. So sad. As everything else in DC.
Better to force the QB into your system and lose rather than adapt to the hot hand and win?
Ass-kissing got Shanny 2 rings. Reeves (as HC anyway) got nothing.
And NoFear, you illustrate my point entirely regarding 3rd and short. One was up the middle for 0, and two were sweeps left for -5 each. They were run out of the SAME formation. The jumbo package. My. point. entirely. Failing to execute that play has been the bane of Nolan, Singletary, Hostler, Jimmy hat, and now Roman/Harbaugh. Take these plays singulary and you can point to execution failures. Collectively though it points to a systemic problem. Putting 7 guys on the line with a FB lets the other team know what is coming. Teams regularly put 8-9 in the box to stop this. The thing is, they usually do. Until we sign Jerome Bettis or Ken Willard this shit won’t work. After, say, 200 failures when do you say hmmmmmmmmm?
This has been proven over and over and over for YEARS, yet you say this is an execution problem? No. This is a play calling problem. Put in 4 WRs to cealr the box. If they don;t honr that you have a wide open WR. If nothing else, it opens up the running lanes and gets one man out of the box.
What are you guys griping about? We’re Improving on 3rd down, sez so right here (Barrows):
* The 49ers ranked 18th in third-down conversion rate, 36.5 percent; Last year they ranked 25th at 35.1 percent.
Of course that’s a deceptive stat given:
* The 49ers finished 24th in total offense after finishing 11th a year ago.
* They finished 30th in passing offense after finishing 23rd a year ago.
* They finished third in rushing offense (with 18 TDs) after finishing fourth (17 TDs) last year.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/49ers/archives/2013/12/navorro-bowman-finished-fifth-in.html
And in more news, Carlos Rogers is heading for an MRIon his right hammy while Perrish Cox was re-re-signed.
The ex-Niner / ex- Seahawk merry-go-round continues…
The Pack is 4-2 against the Niners in the postseason. Time to even up the score a bit.
If it’s 5° with the wind chill at -10° at sundown in Green Bay, can you hear one hand clapping?
In the usual fun around NFL scheduling, the Niners are getting an afternoon start (4:40 pm) in Green Bay. The good news is we get the full week as we play on Sunday, not Saturday.
Could be worse though. Nawlins is playing on Saturday night at 8:10 pm local time in Philly!
On paper, the Niners should shred the Pack. But, they’re not playing on paper. I don’t like it, given our history v. the Packers. And, Rodgers has an extra week to tune up now. We should run on these guys all day. Hopefully, the weather conditions don’t work to even out the talent levels too much. I still think it is bogus and outrageous that a 12-4 must travel to play an 8-7-1 team at its home field — it renders regular season excellence to being near worthless….
12-4 travels to a lesser opponent is bogus. That’s gotta change
Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!
The pisser to me is the Niners would be the 2 seed if not for the bogus call on Brooks.
That one call kept AZ out of the playoffs and knocked us out of a 1st round bye.
Green Bay? We’ve beaten them 3 straight. Once there and 2x here. We beat them in the air this year, and beat them on the ground in the playoffs last year.
Lacy is the only new wrinkle from the past matchups. I think we can render him moot.
This game comes down to our pass rush. We absolutely need to get pressure on Rodgers. The Niners have given up 740 yards in the last 2 games vs AZ and the Falcons. Not exactly confidence inspiring numbers. Throw in only 3 sacks in 97 pass attempts in the past 2 games, and you get why I’m a little perplexed.
Fangio to me has been playing it too safe. For whatever reason the Niners played a 3 man rush early in the Atlanta game. We succumbed easily to TB when they went no-huddle. And yesterday, Carson Daly, uh Palmer threw for over 400 yards. All the while not getting any sustained pressure on him.
A recipie for disaster when facing Rodgers. Granted, we seem to match up much better vs. their O line than Atlanta’s banged up unit, or even Arizona’s, but if we let Rodgers have time, we may be in for a long day.
We’ll lose if we don’t pressure Rodgers effectively
Yesterday, Patton looked like he’s got some potential. I have no idea why he hasn’t gotten many snaps since he’s been eligible to play coming off the foot injury. Has not been ready, nursing the foot, what? As usual, not much detailed information on such things from the local media Niner “insiders”…
Yesterday’s game started out awesome. WR sweep for 12 (Boldin), WR reverse to Patton for 25. Some nice unexpected plays to throw AZ’s defense off balance. 15 yard pass to Joe Staley. It worked for the most part as the Niners quickly scored 17 points in the 1st quarter. Unfortunately the last good drive in the 1st half ended with the Richard Dawson miss.
Kappy had this to say:
“Hopefully, we’re putting things on film that people are a little worried about.”
Snarkk, this is where backup WRs come to die. I hope so too. Many many teams have backups that produce very well, thank you very much. Here is a different proposition.
John Morton, the Niners WR coach. No clue about this guy. Did he have any input on selecting AJ Jenkins?
Wasn’t he the WRs from the Saints years ago? Johnnie Morton?
No clue here. The last Niner WR coach I knew of by name was Jerry Sullivan…
Keenan Allen, finished with 71 recepts for the season, and rookie record in yardage. Boldin, Crabby, and Keenan Allen. I’d be down with that trio heading to the playoffs. Oh well… http://www.chargers.com/news/article-1/Keenan-Allen-Sets-Team-Rookie-Record-in-Win/a0b5b006-8baa-4fc0-a653-643212c0a841
No kidding. Despite his injury plagued year last year, Allen looked the part at Cal. They play a pro set and he ran the routes and made the catches. Shame they didn’t use their 2nd 2nd round pick on him. McDonald is a good blocker, but as a TE he’s pretty much a bust.
I just wonder when these so-called soft teams like Deetroit, Dallas, and Cleveland go for someone like Teflon Mike, or even Aluminum Mike. Both these guy did instill a sense of discipline and order and at least get the team sort of moving in the right direction. One would think Nolan had learned a thing or 2 in his time as a DC in these various spots after his tenure as HC here.
For an out of the blue opinion, I’m not that big on Bellicheat and the Pats, though Brady is clearly one of the all time greats. These guys have gone to the playoffs with home field of some sort just about every year since the tuck rule Raiduhs debacle because they play in such a crap division. Other than the year or two the Jets were good, who do they play six games a year for the last decade? If not the worst, it has to be near the worst division, consistently over that period, in the NFL. The Bills. The Jets. The Dolphins. What a joke of a division. At least when the Niners sucked, the rest of their division pretty much sucked, too, unless you want to go back to the days of the Best Show on Turf Rams…
Yup, but unlike Peyton Manning, who also plays in a crap-ass division (Titan, Jags, and Texans? Oh fuck!), Brady and Co. have won the whole enchilada a few times. Manning has had more chances than Brady, and I know it ain;t just the QBs, but Indy has had some good teams over the years that fell short.
Chuck, I wouldn’t give up on McDonald just yet we will need him down the road. As far as drafting WC’s we gotta be on the low end of the pole. It is a situation that must be reflected by scouting and coaching decisions, our long-term track record really sucks. Patton may very well turn into a gem but until he’s played a bit who’s to know. We are a running team but we now have a rocket-armed QB and to not utilize him is a down right shame. I still feel we are the best team in the playoffs, we just can’t afford many mistakes. “If” the refs do their job properly we should make the SB.
Oh, bust may be too strong, but he hasn’t done very much. Like I said though back up pass catchers don’t fare well here.
BLEEP cold weather.
New thread is up . . . . …………………