So O'Sullivan has given up more turnovers on his own than any team in the NFL. I really don't see how anyone (including Martz) could have a problem with benching him. Especially knowing that ball control was highly stressed behind the scenes.

I certainly was hoping O'Sullivan would be benched, and that is coming from someone who stuck with Nolan and Smith til they were ousted.

100% agree with Finalyst. An individual can't turn the ball over more then any team in the NFL, and stay on the field. Hopfully he can hang on to the clipboard! FEED FRANK GORE THE FOOTBALL and maybe the niners can win one or two more this year.

One more thing I want to say.

Last night I was in a contemplative mood, and I was thinking about the 49ers troubles and how to proceed.

I think that Coach Singletary deserves a large amount of respect, and he possibly would make a good coach some day, but the 49ers already took a chance on a first time head coach. Also, if you look at the York's success (or lack thereof) in hiring coaches who were unproven, I think it points to the 49ers dropping Singletary at the end of this season and hiring a proven coach. Who will be available? Cowher, or Holmgren (although he is taking a break, I think he could come out), I can't really think of many at the moment.

The big thing here is that the 49ers are going to have to put a ton of money out there, and rightfully so. This has been a team without a strong proven coach since Seifert left. If they want to turn things around, they need to go after someone like Cowher with a lot of money. In my opinion, I think it will be well worth it.

Matt,

Do I sense some hesitation on your part with respect to the
Singletary experiment?

All the money in the world wouldn't bring us a proven great coach from the NFL ranks. The ownership is almost Al Davis ridiculous. Their only hope is to sell the team, hire someone from college football(Carroll would never work for these losers!) or maybe Lane Kiffin would give it a shot. I think he will be a quality coach, and the Niners might be a step up from the Raiders. Heavy emphasis on the word might. They need a good G.M. though. More so then a coach. I like A.J. Smith from the Chargers. Which brings me to my next point... I was thinking last night about how long it takes teams to recover from a bust top pick. The Chargers finally recovered from Ryan Leaf a couple years ago. The Browns seem to finally be getting over Tim Couch. I think we have 8-10 dreadful years ahead. Any thoughts?

Hey Matt, to be up front I was never a fan of selecting Singletary to take over for Nolan. I see him and Nolan as one in the same. In a week, my opinion of Singletary has dropped like my 401K. He should have never call out Davis like the way he did; it should of have been done behind closed doors. The dropping of the pants incident makes him look foolish or even like a clown. I can never image a winning head coach dropping their pants in the locker room to make a point. To make it even worst now he is trying to find the leaker. Where was he doing the Plame/CIA leak case? He could have helped. His first week in office is a joke, I am sure the owner, gm, coaches and players have to be embarrassed. I now see why Singletary was turned down for four head coaching jobs and not even approached for an interview last year.

Matt,

I am implying from your recent articles that you don't approve of Sing's first week. Is this true? What do you think how did improperly?

Sorry, inferring.

I agree with other comments along the lines of, we have already suffered with the learning curve of a new HC and new QBs. Lets face it, its not just a matter of time until they make all the learning mistakes, some just never get up the curve very far. I also agree that the Yorks may need to step up the $ offer, because the top candidates are not lining up to come here. We need an offense minded coach with successful experience (or the closest thing).

All those years we saw pictures of Singletary's eyes and thought they were a sign of his deep intensity. Who knew they were actually the eyes of a first class looney.

The little wanker that's leaking information from within the organization
needs to be taken out back and have his
ass whipped by Coach Singletary!

If he wants to find the source of the leak maybe he should start by keeping his pants on!

The locker room is the locker room--not the sidelines, not the conference room. What a coach does in there at half-time is between him and the team, is situational and cannot be judged fairly after the fact, and whoever leaked needs his ass kicked. As for Vernon Davis, if he responds by being a better player, I don't care if Singletary calls him out on every play. It was not clear to me that Singletary was the right guy for the job when he got it, but now that he has it, he deserves a fair chance. And I don't think Matt or anyone else, including Singletary himself, can judge yet which way this will go. Premature predictions of disaster are perhaps best left to the Sarah Palin crowd.

I couldn't agree more, what happens in a locker room should stay there. The leak says more about the team dysfunction than Sing's action. I could care less if he's doing naked jumping jacks if he can this mess cleaned up. Let's give him the next 8 weeks before casting votes. However, I like Mike Mularkey as the early favorite to replace him with Holmgren as GM/VP Personnel/Lord God of all things Football.

I think we all need to step back here and look at the whole picture. Mike Singletary will fail if he is not surrounded by great players and a good coaching staff. When Martz was brought here he stated that Frank Gore was the "centerpiece" of the offense. He clearly lied to the media and fans. Besides his rookie year, Gore is averaging less carries this year per game than the past 2 years. We could have and should have beaten the Eagles. Gore, has 19 carries that game. Martz decided to put the game in JTO (just turn over's) hands. Gore has only had one game...ONE GAME in which he has had over 20 carries (how convinient that it was against Martz' old team that canned him) That is absolutely unacceptable. He is our best player by FAR. Forget Davis, Johnson, Bruce or anyone else on offense, the 49ers staff needs to GIVE GORE THE ROCK MORE in the second half of the season. He is averaging 4.6yds per cary and last I checked, when you multiply that by 3 (meaning 1st, 2nd and 3rd down) it equals 13.8 which will give you a first down. I am not saying to give him 50 carries a game, but he needs the ball 5-10 times more a game. Clinton Portis has 187 carries this year which is 23.4 carries a game. Gore has proven to be far more durable than Portis. Gore would be leading the league in rushing if he got the touches. Another thing is Munusky. I just dont see hid creativity on generating pressure. We dont have any edge pass rushers so we have to be creative on getting pressure on the QB. We need to throw out the 3-4. We dont have the personnel to run it and havent had it in the last 3 years. I hate to even think that great players like Willis and Gore are going to rot in SF and never get to be on a winning team. But again, if Singletary is to remain the 49ers head coach, he needs to really look at the coaching staff and he has to have a plan on what type of team he wants to be. We need an identity, right now we dont have one.

People from around the nation are taking that little dough boy Sando from ESPN to task. Does the guy come across as a smartass or what. Maybe Jonas "crystal" Jennings can accidently fall on that guy and do the old get up slowly with the fist jammed in his rib cage and and snap a few just to keep the little puke out of the locker room. It would give Mr Crystal something to do besides cashing 6 digit pay checks for doing nothing every week. In the old days things like this wouldn't happened. But for some reason todays scribes think they are part of something they are not. There are legendary stories that come out after the player or coash has passed. Like the one about Babe Ruth being chased naked through a train on a Yankess road trip by a woman with a broken bottle of whiskey. They never said a word about that until the Bambino had passed. Todays journalist would turn there own mother in if they knew they would get on the front page. Just look at Mike Silver, the guy just makes stuff up, the Jason Blair of sports media. I sure wouldn't trust a MSM writer with a rock in my backyard. I like Issac Bruces style when it comes to the press. Or Joe Montana's, he hated the media and for good reason. They needed him a lot more than he needs the MSM.

I think Vernon Davis leaked it. You huniliate me, I'll humiliate you.

I mean humiliate.

i am highly disappointed with 'sing-sings' actions on his first game as interim coach. while all attention was given to the v.d./pants dropping incident, the real focus should be on another debilitating and embarrassing loss. seattle was (again) without their key offensive players and once again, we couldn't capitalize. that should have been sunday's story-line. now regarding the v.d. incident, althought v.d. hurt us with a bone-headed penalty at a critical time, i give him credit for not creating a scene when leaving the field. do you believe t.o. or plexico might have reacted with the same restraint? oh, by the way, in case those viewing the game might have missed it; wasn't it v.d. making an all-out dash in an attempt to catch the d.b. (after another 'gift' from 'sully') from scoring right before halftime? and speaking about halftime; i've been trying my best to rationalize and justify 'sing-sings' act of dropping his pants. honestly, i'm confused and disturbed by his actions. this motivational ploy may have worked back in the eighties but now it almost borders on schizophenia. i was pulling for 'sing' to become our coach when noland's firing seemed a foregone conclusion, but on the heels of these two very bizarre events 'sing' may be just one implosion away from joining noland at home watching the game on t.v. from their sofa. at this rate, m-martz may become the first person to succeed a head-coach and an interim-coach in the same season. aside from the soap-opera, 'sing' did make one good decision in yanking 'sully.' now the focus should be placed on the o-line during the bye-week instead of the actions of our interim coach.

I am sure that somehow the media will be able to point blame to McCain for the entire locker room incident. Regardless, this team has gone from a joke to just juvenile, and really should be sold to an owner who is involved.

What Singletary did was the funniest thing. But I still question why was Arizona at the SF/Sea game for? Are the games usually covered by home team and opposing, why would Arizona's radio be there? I don't think their station is in association to KNBR, this I don't know now, but I don't know why they give that report out...and it took our media/Internet like 2 days to pick up on it and make a big deal out of what Singletary did/didn't do. One Internet site that has NFL teams (but also 'bad fans') was saying Singletary had no underwear on and pointed to his behind.

I'm sure McCain is going to be involved somehow myself.

I agree on selling the team. Too bad Roger Goodell is more interested in banning Pacman Jones then he is in banning bad ownership. Goodell doesn't give a F about the Bay Area like the last NFL president didn't.

The 49ers are just playing to lose the games sadly.

It's true that 50 years ago, the press didn't report a lot of what happened. But that world has been gone for at least 25 years. Singletary has been around the NFL press. Everything gets out. I hope he doesn't spend his time hunting down the leak. If you try to make a point in a dramatic way, chances are it will make a good story people will want to share. Singletary has a lot more important things to do than spend any more time on it.

Before we all go jumping on the "established coach" bandwagon, perhaps we should take a look at what established coaches do after they leave their original teams. Belichick is the most notable exception to the trend for coaches to get less and less effective with each succeeding job. Parcells is the perfect example of what typically happens -- won superbowls with the Giants, lost one with the Patriots, lost the AFC Championship game with the Jets and couldn't get out of the first round with the Cowboys. The great coaches in the NFL have always come from the ranks of NFL assistants (with the exception of Halas and Brown for obvious reasons) and we should be looking for a great coach, not just one who, like Mariucci, will get into the playoffs and then get wiped out every season.

Finally the Niners are making news for something other than being a lousy, boring football team. In fact, they weren't even making the news at all, they were so boring and so bad. I bet the whole country is dying to see the Niners next game on Monday Night Football. Singletary has thrown down the gauntlet to this team and made it a public announcement to the nation. If we got any players on this team, we'll find out in the next game. And the players know the spotlight is dead solid on their butts to perform or be laughed off the stage. Or yanked off it, like Davis, in full view of the entire country. Now that's some serious, motivational Head Coaching, folks. Go Niners. Go Singletary.

Matt,

Is there any chance that the Niners will pick up KGB as he just got relased by the Green Bay?