San Francisco 49ers Forever

The names are flying around like confetti: Rex Ryan, Adam Gase, Josh McDaniels, Don Quinn, Darrell Bevell, Pete Carmichael, Hue Jassolle, Pep Hamilton, even crypt-keepers Mike Shanahan (and his son Kyle) and once and future past OC Mike Holmgren, Not to mention Fangio, Tomsula, and even Greg (urk) Roman as the internal candidates.

If they do go internal, which is a possibility, I’d tap Fangio. His job of holding together a defense riddled by injuries was above reproach. He also did more than his share to keep this team in a lot of games that could have definitely been losses if not for the stellar defense.

Lots of people out there are pooh-poohing the idea that anyone on the outside would even bother to want to get near this front office, but the reality is, this team has a lot of talent, and there are a lot of guys like Gase who would take the shot regardless of what the perception is with the front office. How he would be as a HC? Who knows?

All I know is I want a coach that can develop a cogent and fluid offense that can sustain drives and score in the red zone. I guess asking for a team that doesn’t burn all their time outs 10 minutes into the first quarter might be too much to ask for.

49-22-1. This is what Jim Harbaugh did his 4 years as the Niner head coach. What is his legacy? Well to me, it’s falling short. The standard is was and should be winning the Super Bowl. With Jjmbo here we went from outhouse to penthouse in one strike-shortened preseaon in 2011. In the process he turned Alex Smith from a perennial close-but-not quite guy to a 13-3 QB on a roll. But for 2 fumbles, this team is in the Super Bowl.

Next year, Harbaugh gets the team in position to win the Super Bowl. Until the game starts and they dig themselves an impossible hole to dig out of. But for a delay of game, the Niners win. Last year? Well, close but not quite again. This year started a disaster 2 months before the season started and it never got much better despite better weapons and supposed more continuity.

So, on his last day as the 49er coach, Jimbo wins game 49. Quite a legacy, and Jimbo should be given credit for instilling a winning attitude for a moribund franchise, However, he did inherit a team with a pretty strong roster, One loaded with high draft picks, and talent. For as quickly as things changed, and they were tantalizingly close to reaching their goals those 3 times, they fell short.  The part I didn’t like was how Harbaugh leaned on his defense a lot of the time.  Give him an early lead and he’ll sit on it.  Fall behind, and he’ll grudgingly get aggressive. For all the talent they had, I think they left a lot of points on the field, and many times they were not prepared come game time.

What happens now? I have a pretty good idea that they are going to keep this shit in-house. Which means Mike Tomsula. Which means that other coaches may start defecting. Greg Roman is surely gone. The offensive coaches should be shit-canned. Well, keep Rathman (and Gore for that matter). John Morton? Seeing the ineffectiveness of the WRs for the most part, gone. The line coaches can go as we will more than likely look to change the blocking style.

I wonder if promoting Tomsula over Fangio will mean Fangio leaves. I hope he stays as he did a remarkable job with a defense riddled by injury. Harbaugh never did him many favors, and he is likely in the running as HC. Whatever they do, I hope they find someone to take this offense to a new level. For all the troubles this year, injuries played a big part of the problems, and this team still has a ton of talent. They are not in rebuilding mode,and should be considered a playoff contender when the next traiing camp breaks.

In a game that was supposed to be an important one, the only importance attached to it now is to see if the Super-Bowl-aspiring-at-the-beginning-of-the-year 49ers can avoid the ignominy of dropping to 7-9. At crunch time at 7-4, the Niners closed the season-in-balance with what very well may be a 5 game losing streak. All the while looking lost and pathetic on offense.

AZ on the other hand is still fighting for a 1st round bye, or at least the division crown. Seattle has the edge right now anyway, and both games will be happening at the same time, so there will be some scoreboard watching by those teams. AZ is in a QB quandary as Logan Thomas played so well in practice they named Davis Lindley their starter.

Don’t see too much chance in AZ for a win. 7-9. Harbaugh out. Let the countdown begin at 4:45 PST.

Today is Jim Harbaugh’s 51st birthday, duly noted by Michigan, and Mark Davis, among others. What will he get from Jed for Christmas? A one-way bus ticket to Oakland? The freedom to take the Michigan job?

Whatever happens, this team will have a lot of questions going into the 2015 season. I mean beyond the head coach leaving, and the possibility he takes a bunch of coaches with him. Least of which is the status of the disappearing pass-catchers. VD played like a guy supremely dissatisfied with his contract. Crabs was kind of involved. Boldin was solid if unspectacular. Both Brandon Lloyd and Stevie Johnson showed early promîse, but both faded down the stretch with nagging injuries.

Gore, despite the 158 he put up the other day, has been ignored/abandoned all year. Hyde looked great to start the season, but again, the 49ers went away from the run and he didn’t get much to do til he got hurt. Hunter of course was hurt in the preseason and LMJ was cut to leave the running corps in a bit of disarray. And that leafs out Marcus Lattimore’s ill-fated try to make the squad.

Does that mean we sign Gore? I’m sure the team will take a wait-and-see approach, but it’s within the realm of possibility that the Niners re-sign him. He still hits the hole hard, however his blocking has been sorely lacking this year after a career of being a stellar blocker. Speaking of blocking, this was probably the weakest unit on the team this year. Whether due to injuries, holdouts, or the ignominious presence of Jonathan Martin, the line play was the worst seen since the early days of Alex Smith.

The QB position also suffered a big regression. Gone was the confident swaggering QB who has recorded playoff road wins in tough environments the past couple years. Even up to the bye week, Kaepernick was having a solid if unspectacular season. After the bye, however, has been a different story. Indecisiveness, reluctance to run, locking onto WRs, waiting too long, taking sacks, throwing picks, fumbling, whatever, Kappy has suddenly come up small in these last few games.

The defense? Well, hot and cold. They overcame a ton of injuries, a ton of ridiculous penalties, and played as well as can be expected. The problems? Well, the disappearing pass rush. Some of that was due to the absence of Aldon Smith, but there were more than a few games (Bears, AZ, StL, Oak, Denver, SD off the top of my head) where the 49ers barely got a hand on the QB all game. More often than not you lose those games.

Going forward? No one knows at this point. Not even Jed. He may be itching to pull the trigger, but who knows who is on his coaching Christmas list.

Someone will be getting a lump of coal soon.

Just saw on the ESPN crawl that Jim Harbaugh is ‘torn’ about accepting the Michigan job. His friends and family are encouraging him to take it, but he says he’s curious about what is around in the NFL.  In other words, Jimbo is looking for more money. He’s going to play coy and see who writes the biggest check. I still think it’s going to be Michigan after all is said and done.

Frankly, I’m glad. Yeah, this regime of ineptitude could very hire another shitty coach and we go into the toilet again for 4 years, but I don’t see this team as it is currently constituted doing well if everything stays in place. Not that it could even come to pass, but Harbaugh has a habit of doing exactly what he’s doing here and that’s pissing off everyone around him. Not that this is a determining factor to keep a coach, but Harbaugh was handed the keys to a very talented but underachieving team. He basically rode the team by time and again leaning on the defense to make stops and keep the scores low.

For Harbaugh supposedly being an offensive coach, this was curious to me. There’s trying to be smashmouth and there’s constantly leaving points on the field. Whether Smith or Kaepernick was the QB, the offense was a lot like the previous offense. A whole lot of Gore and a whole lot of keeping the scores down. The offensive problems plaguing this team from day one of the Harbaugh era remain. No sense of urgency in getting plays off quickly, using up all of the play clock and more, red zone inefficiencies, and the inexplicable inability to make any kind of offensive adjustments on the fly.

This season it became insanely apparent as the 49ers were able to score pretty well in the first halfs of games, scoring an average of 13 points in the first half, and sucking down to an average of 5 points in the 2nd half of their games this season. This leads me to believe these coaches can game plan during the week pretty well, but when teams adjust things at the half, the 49ers don’t counter the changes they face, and end up fading as the defense ends up playing too much in the end. The 3 wins over NO, NYG, and Washington all followed this path, and the losses to Chi, AZ, Seattle, StL, and Oakland followed this deal.  Early leads given up in the 2nd half.

The defense has been able to keep these games close over the years, but not this year. This year’s offense seemed bound and determined to abandon the run completely, and the results are pretty obvious to see.  No continuity, massive substitutions and motion, all destined to use up play clock and stow down the offense. The same inane pass plays. Outs and fades. Nothing over the middle anymore. No screens, no slants, nothing to slow down the relentless pressure Kaepernick faced. To the tune of the most sacks in the league.

The game tomorrow? All I can hope for is no injuries as we play out the string.

The battle cry now is to not have a losing record. 9-7 is likely out, so 8-8 appears to be the goal. Problem is, both San Diego and AZ are playing for something, and we aren’t. So we’ll end up 7-9.

Might as well get the draft position at this point. Likely 13-16 is where we’ll end up. Near as I can tell at this point we have 9 draft picks coming up, so we can certainly help ourselves out.

Problem is, we likely have a lot of coaches who will be leaving. Baalke hasn’t shown a knack for drafting WRs, or even developing them. This may be an issue with the offense we currently run, but who knows? This team faced 5 years worth of line injuries and 10 years of front office bullshit. And that was before the season started.

Weird to be on the outside looking in, but hey, had we given Harbaugh his extension before the season started, we’d be tied to this crap-ass offense for another 5 years.  I have more faith in Kaepernick getting better with a different offense than I do this offense getting better with the current cash of characters.

And so it goes. I guess the Harbugh era ends not with a bang, but a whimper. I’m sure these guys will play hard for their last couple games, but we are injured, depleted, and out of sorts across the board. Questions abou d in every aspect of the team from Jed to the grounds crew. About the only thing to play for is to stop the losing streak, which is at 3. Another first for the Harbaugh era.  not sure what they have up their sleeves, but I highly doubt that Harbugh gets a deal after this season of everyone’s discontent.

lots of name are being floated out as possible successors but I’m sure they won’t go with any of them.  The oisser to me is we shouldn’t have to go through another regime change. All that needs to happen is for Harbaugh to get an OC whose passing game isn’t rooted in the 1970s. He seems determined to stick with his guns regarding GRoman. In my head, that’s worth his ticket out of here.  I know there’s a lot more to it than that, but it’s good enough for me. Then you have Baalke saying he doesn’t notice any problems with the offense. Right.  We’ll listen to what you say after Iimbo. Leaves he building. I’m sure the story will be different come that day.

I ain’t happy about this, but I don’t see any other way out.

Was Robert Johnson really selling his soul to the devil for fleeting fame and fortune at the crossroads of Highways 61 and 49, or was he just trying to get the hell of of Mississippi? I ask this question, because this pattern of instant success and then lingering animosity seems to be following Jim Harbaugh around like a tick hound after a convict.

He revived two college programs and the Niners through the force of his insatiable will and drive, yet has left people angry and confused with his balls to the wall 24/7 approach. This includes the front offices of the colleges, and especially 4949 Centennial Blvd. Abrasive, caustic, dismissive, arrogant are the terms usually used about Harbaugh. The success is fine, but is it worth the cost? Some say sure, as long as the big prize is won. The problem is, Jimbo has not hit the jackpot. Yes, he won the Orange Bowl in 2010. His biggest win as a head coach, Yet his 3 playoff losses have been marked by bad breaks, a few gut wrenching fumbles, some terrible officiating, and a very mistimed timeout which apparently changed the last 3 pays of the 2012 season.

So, what’s the plan going forward? This week was one of a lot of damage control. The Niners reached their nadir in PR relations after the Raider loss, and who could really blame them?  A team that had given up 52 points to the lowly Rams (and scored ZERO) suddenly looked like the monsters of the midway. Kaepernick was terse with the media, Harbaugh was his usual prickly self, and all the talk circled around the new head coach and where Harbaugh would land. There’s even talk the trade with the Raiders would happen after this upcoming game. And how weird would it be for the Raiders to trade for the guy they just beat?

All the talk is of a massacre not seen since the likes of Custer and Little Bighorn. I’m sure this next loss will come to pass, but I think this team has actually helped itself with some actual communication going on. If Harbaugh has any pull left with these players, this is their last stand. Win, and their flickering playoff hopes are still alive. Lose, and they are staring at a possible 0-5 run to close out the Harbaugh era, and a 7-9 record.

Here we are at the game many circled to be the biggest one of the season instead looks to be one I just may have to turn off by half time. The team could not be more ripe for an absolute ass kicking than right now. The owner is actively undermining the head coach. The head coach is lying through his teeth while the team just crumbles around them. The new stadium is a corporate nightmare of little excitement and people networking in the through half time and most of the 3rd quarter.

Frankly, I think we have about a 2% chance of winning this game. I don’t see any way that the Niners can pull out of this tailspin. There are just way too many things stacked against them. Least of all the fact that Seattle is getting healthy and is establishing themselves as the best team in the league. If we can get shut down by the Raiders, what do we look to get against the Seattle.  They are in hyper-kill mode here. Carroll has a bunch of crow waiting for ol’ Jimbo. I think he’ll be eating a lot of it.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. In yet another epic fail in a season rapidly filling up with fails, the 49ers laid a stinking turd in their own back yard by losing in miserable fashion to the lowly Oakland Raiders. Who would think that the Raiders, winners of 2 of their last 3 games, would completely dominate the now docile Niners? Losers of 2 out of their last 3.

It it had the feeling of doom when Kaepernick threw his first pass for a pick. It stayed through most of the game as the Niner offense sputtered and stalled time and time again. The difference today was our vaunted defense was toasted repeatedly with passes over the middle to their TEs. Something Seattle showed and we didn’t correct.

Other than that, the Niners had one nice drive and took the rest of the day off.  The missed FG just was the diarrhea icing on the shit cake. I’m completely at a loss to figure out what the problem is, so I blame everyone. From Jed on down. I still blink Kaepernick can return to his former self. Harbaugh has worn out his welcome.