Well, the season that started with a bang ends with barely a whimper. A team that beat the playoff-bound Minnesota Vikings fairly easily quickly went into a tailspin that they couldn’t get out of. 1-0 to 4-12. Injuries, inconsistency, bad coaching, bad play, terrible offense, terrible defense, a quarterback benching, on and on.

A season that started with a ton of question marks and uncertainty after the mass exodus of players, and the gutting of a coaching staff ends with likely another purging of coaches at the least. The team that was terrible offensively last year sunk even lower. The team took a huge hit in talent on defense, and it showed in a number of blowouts, but that was due to the many turds the offense laid. Sort of a self-generating shit show of 3-and-outs followed by quick scores by the opponents.

The finger of blame can be pointed at just about anyone on the team and in the front office, but to me the biggest problem with this team is that the talent that was abundant 3 short years ago has gotten old, moved on, and has not been replaced. The galling thing to me is that Trent Baalke is under NO pressure from the local media regarding his status as the GM, and his problems replenishing the team with playmakers.

Sure, Jimmy Bag-of-Doughnuts is an easy target to pigeon-hole as the source of the team’s woes (anyone who farts in a presser WILL catch shit), but he was given a very bad hand to start with. The machinations around the coaching hires started with Adam Gase nearly being signed only to (apparently) flee the ship after Jed York mandated that Tomsula, not Vic Fangio, be the DC.  This scenario supposedly played out, but I can’t for the life of me figure out WHY Tomsula plays such a huge role on this team. It should have been a no-brainer to get Gase and keep the defensive coaching staff together. Beyond that, Tomsula is no offensive genius, and the rest of his coaching staff did little to alleviate the worries around the moribund offense.

Rightfully so it turned out, as they are the worst offense in the league. The thing is, there are rumblings that Jed won’t even get rid of Tomsula, let alone his GM. This team was riddled with injuries last year, and managed to crawl to 8-8. This year saw another shitload of injuries, but with the talent drain, they staggered to 4-12. Keeping Tomsula and shit-canning Chryst and the rest does little to change the prevailing suck. Status quo will likely bring about a mediocre season, even if they don’t get ravaged by injuries. I know Jed likes to float things around through social media using his underlings to get the lay of the land from the fan base, but he HAS to know that there will be black-outs and sponsor defections in the near future should this same coaching staff/front office returns next season.

Sigh.