Well, the wait is (almost) finally over. the new-look streamlined 49ers open camp on August 1st at 7:00 pm pacific time. In these days of truncated preseasons and quick turnaround times, we have out first exhibition game on August 15th in Houston. The home preseason opener is Aug 23rd vs those lovely Cowgirls.
Two weeks of practice and instant season. Is it enough time to assimilate everything? Gosh, Wally! Who knows? There’s been enough blogticulation to fill 666 King James bibles, so I’ll leave that part of the story out, other than to say there appears to be little middle ground on what the future portends. I will say that Harbaugh managed to pull it off back in 2011 with an even smaller window. No reason to think these guys can’t get shit rolling quickly. Unless you subscribe to the myth that St. Jim is otherworldly.
As far as the season goes, you have the chicken-littles and you have the guardedly optimistic. No one is predicting a Super Bowl berth with the amount of talent that left, but many (including me) expect a playoff run. The team still has a lot of talent, and they have an experienced coaching staff. Defensively anyway. Then you have the crowd that seems to caper around gleefully predicting the long and hard fall to abject shittiness and decrepitude. No middle ground, no thinking that there may be a bump in the road. It is a decade of downtime. Jed screws the team into the ground for 10 years for some sort of ego bath. Got it. It had nothing to do with the fact that the former head coach was a major league asshole who alienated everyone in the building and took a strong team to be the bridesmaid, but not the bride. A team that went 8-8. Despite St Jim and all those guys that left.
I get thinking the team could possibly have a rough patch, but to devote so much time and energy to spreading the bile endlessly over months and months and ridiculing every move the team makes and inventing reasons for why shit went bad 2 years ago is baffling. The overarching need to get in front of the ‘they suck’ train is a mystery to me.
Like the crazy crab promotions at the Stick years ago (“We don’t do mascots. Please boo the crab!”) , there are people hoping against hope that the team crashes and burns, so they can project their hatred of the owner. A guy who looks and acts just like his predecessor, Eddie.
Forty Niners Forever 
It’s not even the threat of disappointment tbat is prevalent. It’s the 80 threada in a row of doom and failure and woe. Based on their hope the team fails. And, don’t kid yourself, they ARE hoping for failure Otherwise, why ao much pessimism everyday all the time?
The team was 8-8 WITH those geneouaes.
A paragraph from Jed the meddler:
Hah! Yeah, that’s putting lipstick ion the proverbial pig, but who knows? A stretch? Sure, but we won’t know till we do. As I’ve said a million times, all the need to do is improve the offense to the point of respectability and they’ll be fine.
Tomsula is a well-respected coach, but that’s about as far as it goes. My point has always been most of this shit that went down goes down with Harbaugh as well. This isn’t any kind of abandonment by guys who otherwise wouldn’t have left.
When you make a change like this you never know what to expect. I was telling anybody who would listen that the Warriors needed to make a change. With Jackson they were always going to win but never win it all. He was a Chuck Knox or Marty Schottenheimer of basketball. The offensive philosophy was too stoppable by good defenses. There was no spacing. Just like the Harbaugh offense.
The Warriors took a big chance. It could have backfired. I remember the players not happy about letting Jackson go. Ann Killion and Cohn were lambasting Lacob. Lacob was actually getting booed at home games when he traded Ellis. Lacob was not deterred. He knew he had to make a bold move and hope it worked out. At least it was a calculated move. He didn’t do it blindly. But still, it was quite a risk.
I’ve been comparing the Warriors and 49ers all off season. Both coaches won but alienated the front office. I’ve seen that comparison disregarded by some. That’s OK. It is to be expected. Like I’ve said before many times, when an employee and the owner have a fall out, the owner always wins. He has to for the sake of the business. Harbaugh will need to learn this at some point. He’s a good coach but a bad manager.
Let’s just hope the 49ers move turns out as well as the Warriors move.
The biggest chance the Warriors took was the possibility of not landing Kerr. The Knicks wanted him bad. Anyone with half a brain knew Kerr was going to do a great job. Killion and co notwithstanding. Kerr has proven over the years to be a smart guy, a strong competitor, and someone the players had instant respect for.
Harbaugh likes to run things his way, and he likes to create turmoil. He enjoys fucking with people in pressers, and being obtuse and weird to his higher-ups. The brass at Stanford was never too enamored with him as well. Don’t know about USD, but that was his launching pad.
Remind you of anyone?
Shit, Vince McMahon looks like he’s 12. This must be late 70s!
Gobble gobble jive turkey indeed.
ithink early 80″s. Anyway that was just for laughs.
Ok, just to even the playing field. Does this remind you of anyone?
Hyuk!!!
I’m thinking more like this:
Yeah, that is more true to the point. i was just having some fun and figured a military theme kinda worked.
Hey he can drop trou, prance naked in the locker room, eat funny mushrooms, or scream “who’s got it better than us?” as long as he wins us some games.
Whatever the HC does he should avoid dropping his pants. I hope for his sake he is prepared for the pressers. Jed York should put duct tape on his mouth and leave everyone alone except for signing the checks. I admit I’m just dreaming…….
Slow days indeed. This was before game 1 last year.
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24699193/report-jim-harbaugh-already-losing-49ers-locker-room
And a story from March 2014.
http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2014/3/3/5465588/jim-harbaugh-san-francisco-49ers
I guess when you cherry pick who to believe, sometimes the cherries get pretty crowded.
Speaking of dealing with the press.
Jim’s gem.
http://www.shermanreport.com/cowherd-interview-michigan-in-trouble-if-harbaugh-cant-do-better/
Winder I found one you might enjoy….
Thanks NJ, always liked Koko
Can’t stop with just one…
BB/Koko and of course, Lucille.
And just for the H3LL of it….Some Attitude from the shredders.
IT’s ok to say hell, NJ! Great stuff tho.
Don;t know how many of you like rap, but this is a great song, Coolio, taken from Stevie Wonder…
Funny thing is, this movie is about the busing of students from East Palo Alto to Carlmont.
I was going to Menlo-Atherton during the “67” Watts riots. I actually lived in Ravenswoods school district but used a family friends address. Anyway, for three days we had 3 full police buses come on campus with cops in total riot gear. I haven’t thought of that for years. It was kind of funny since nothing went off. They would walk around the school and periodically check the restrooms. Ravenswood really wasn’t all that bad, most of my friends went to it. I just had an opportunity to go MA and took it. Also I could walk there in 15 minutes. Y.A Tittles son was going there at the time.
And well, might as well go for the trifecta:
Lol, fucking great
I’d never seen the weird Al version.
Pretty funny