The 49ers' new pattern is to humiliate themselves about once a month. Here's a list of self-induced 49er humiliations and as you read them remember the Niners used to be a class outfit that players from all over the league wanted to play for.
Singletary drops pants.
Niners hire Singletary without searching for another coach.
Gruden and Shanahan become available.
Niners try to hire Scott Linehan as offensive coordinator. He visits Niners and his eyes must pop out of his head when he hears what their offense will be. He goes to, gulp, Detroit.
Up to 3 other potential OC's turn down Niners. Dan Reeves turns down their OC offer to become a mere consultant with the Cowboys. That job lasts a week and he leaves. So he turned down the Niners for a job than never happened.
The Niners get Jimmy Raye about whom we know nothing. Well we know he was the 4th choice.
The Niners allow themselves to be linked with that awful Michael Vick, saying they might consider him. A day later some underling issues a statement telling media to forget that.
Kurt Warner uses the Niners to sweeten his deal with Arizona. The 49ers allow themselves to be used.
The Niners woo Warner who plays from the shotgun formation, incompatible with Singletary's power running game.
Warner goes back to Arizona because, he says, God told him to.
According to Warner, God apparently loves Arizona more than San Francisco.
How humiliating is all this? To read my full column on Niner humiliation click here.
Nice list!
I am laughing because it's too humiliating to cry.
You've got a good point there, Lowell! And this stuff just happened within a couple of months! Can't even imagine what will be humiliating in the coming months! I have a feeling the list will grow and grow!
Don't forget about our "psychologist" who freaked out Matthew Stafford at the combine interviews. We don't do anything right.
Oh please!!! You seemed to jump on the bandwagon when Singletary was hired and never saw you once wrote that there was a better candidate out there. Was Dan Reeves ever offered the job? There goes a fine line between an interview and the job actually offered to you. Raye might have been option 4, but if I remember right I dont recall anyone turning down the job other then Linehan.
I will admit Warner might have used the Niners, but big deal. The Niners having Warner over for a visit just prevented their division rival from possibly signing another quality free agent with the money they just forked out.
Pathetic. 6 and 10 here we come!
Lowell,
I don't need to read the rest of the article this little segment was painfull enough. After reading this I would like to ad-lib a lyric from a Simon & Garfunkel song " Oh where have you gone Bill Walsh"
Let me see. Singletary is the first winning coach since Mariucci.
The Niners have been nicely filling the holes in their roster since the start of free agency.
Matthew Stafford is going to be long gone before the Niners draft. Besides, he has issues with his parents.
Warner is a good quarterback, but old and with psychotic delusions, hearing voices in his head. The Cardinals just added more guaranteed money towards him which will hurt their cap space.
There are many critics of the Niners since Singletary was named head coach after their win over Washington. Amazingly, the Niners haven't lost one game in that stretch. The panic/derision in this corner of Niner Land is all based on weird assumptions, like Raye, who last was a receivers coach, doesn't know about the forward pass. That Kurt Warner both couldn't fit in with or improve the Niners' offense and that it is a slap in the face when he stayed with the team he took to the Super Bowl. That an off-hand comment to a question about Michael Vick (who is still in jail and still has to be reinstated to the NFL, which may never happen) somehow revealed team plans for quarterback next year.
All of these leaps of illogic say more about the correspondent than Singletary or the 49ers. The Niners may or may not improve, but Cohn is not on the cutting edge of criticism anymore. He's just cutting.
By the way, in 1993 Reggie White said God told him to go to Green Bay instead of the Forty-Niners, so this isn't the first time San Francisco has been dissed by The Almighty.
First, why does anyone care if he dropped trou? Give it a rest. What are you? Six years old?
Second, are you sure that Gruden and Shanahan would have taken the job? Seems to me other teams have had a chance to pick them up, and both coaches are still unemployed. If the 49ers are as humiliating as you claim, why would you even think that either would want to coach them anyway? Singletary was the right pick at the right time. Only time will tell if it work out.
Third, the OC choice. Linehan declines the job. That might be a blessing. You don't know. Things work out for a reason. Reeves - what is so wrong about interviewing? Sounds like Reeves had an interest to get back into this at a certain level and eventually had second thoughts - this could be especially true after he left the Cowboys.
Fourth - well, I've probably lost your interest by now, but Singletary is a young coach and will say things incorrectly sometimes. The Vick statement is proof. But humiliating to the 49ers and himself? It was a mistake that was corrected immediately. Haven't we all said things or emailed things, and then a day goes by and we go, oops, that didn't sound right. It happens.
Fifth - Warner. Anytime you have a chance to improve your club you do it. He is an improvement over the QBs we currently have. If Hill has hurt feelings, he has the chance this year to have a better year than Warner did in '08. He's a pro. He'll get over it. With Warner threatening to leave, it caused the Cards to up their original offer. That is ultimately good for the 49ers as it takes resources away from the Cards.
I'm not an apologist, nor a PR person, but common sense can win the day if you let it. Is the 49ers org similar to the Patriots? Heck no. But firing Nolan puts them way ahead of where they were last year at this time. That's improvement. They are giving their young players a chance to step up. 2009 could be a breakout year for them.
Actually, Arby, Lowell did criticized the team for jumping in with Singletary the day he was promoted. And he was right.
truthsayer wrote: "Actually, Arby, Lowell did criticized the team for jumping in with Singletary the day he was promoted. And he was right."
I think that Arby was talking about the anti-Singletary bandwagon. Whatever. As to your defense of Lowell:
Lowell was right because Singletary had a winning record with the same players that Nolan lost with? Or was Lowell right that Singletary was the wrong choice because the Niners have lost how many games this off-season?
So far all Lowell has done was spout his opinion with nothing to back it up. He seems to interpret any news from the Niners in the most negative way. How come? What is it about Singletary and Raye (and McCloughan) that Lowell doesn't like? If Singletary dropping his pants turned the team around, hooray. Maybe Lowell should take off his pants before he writes about the Niners.
Poor Lowell. Did Singletary pass on letting you interview him? Local teams (except SJ Sharks) don't have much to offer lately, but if they did I guess you wouldn't have much to say. Maybe some day the PD will get wise and dump your space with something more interesting and informative - like a public notice or an advertisement.
Hey Bob in Pacifica I dont know what you are smoking, but it must be good stuiff. you say 'Singletary turned the team around". If a 5-4 record with all five wins coming over non-playoff teams (Bills, Jets, Redskins, Rams-twice) counts as a turn-around in your book you must be incredibaly easy to please.
I remember I was harshly critical of Lowell when he came right out and said that JTO was no good after the Philadelphia game. Like most fans, I was looking at JTO with rose colored glasses and was not willing to face facts. Turns out Lowell was right about JTO. Lowell has always maintained that he is not a 49er fan, therefore he is willing to come out and say things which may not be pleasant to fans.
Obviously you haven' been reading Lowell's columns and Blogs.
Lowell NEVER jumped on the Singletary bandwagon, ever. He mentioed ALL the candidates he thought were better and should have been interviewed befor signing Singletary.
Lowell also followed and presented to his readers, daily, the moves by the 49ers trying to hire an OC! And how would you know WHO turned the 49ers down and who turned them down and for what reasons, I have NO IDEA!?
And what you put forward as the reason Warner was interviewing with the 49ers is complete speculation on your part. Just because something seems this way or that, unless you're part of the inside process, you can't state facts about what you do or don't know.
Lowell,
When I was growing up in the Bay Area, I always thought God was a 49er. But the last 10 years or so have made me question that faith. I was hoping that Singletary would bring Him back into the 49er family, what with the cross, the piercing stare and everything. But maybe not. Oh well, I hear Arizona real estate is getting killed by this economy so they probably need Him more than we do now.
Thank you for letting us know. You are a very funny writer.
All this talk of how the Niners humiliated themselves by meeting with Warner is a JOKE!!! We all knew, including the Niners, that Warner wanted to stay in Arizona, and the odds of him signing else where were low. The Niners got a chance to meet with him anyhow.If there was any chance to steal Warner away from their biggest rival in the division and get a top name QB in the process, obviously they had to meet with Warner to find that out! Though they say an official offer was never tendered to Warner, they let him and his agent know that they were willing to pay upwards of $30M for two years. We all know that Warners agent obviously used that as a bargaining tool with their negotiations with Arizona! At the very least it drove up the price Arizona had to pay Warner a couple MIL., which as Arby stated is one less free agent they can now sign!
What would Cohn and others be saying about the Niners if Warner had not met with any other team and just dealt with Arizona, and then it comes out that they were willing to speak with the Niners but the Niners declined???? OMG, Cohn would be DOGGING the Niners for a week if that would of been the scenario!
One last point. All this talk of how the Niners want to be able to run the ball. SHEEZE, you'd think they don't even need a QB anymore?? Some people take that as they're going to come out and run it 3 times up the gut and either get a first down or punt! Trust me, they are still going to have to throw the ball!! If you had to pick another NFL team that is considered a running team the Steelers come to mind. I think they just won a big game here recently? I think they also have a decent QB who makes allot of big plays for them with his ARM!!!!
I suggest we all at least let the Niners get through free agency and the draft before we start judging them! Maybe even a pre season game or two.
Rick, I'm not smoking anything, at least not until they legalize it.
Want to review the Singletary record? First game Singletary took over on a Tuesday with the team in disarray. That loss to Seattle was the "drop trou" game. Second game they would have beaten the team that went to the Super Bowl but Martz gave contradictory calls in the last minute.
After that the team went 5-2. The Jets and Bills had earlier looked like a lock for the playoffs, and the Redskins had a shot. Those teams didn't make the playoffs in large part because they lost to the Niners. Go back to midseason and see how the pundits were predicting the rest of the season for those teams, and the Niners.
Bob, your selective memory is amazing. If you want to blame Martz (correctly I might add) for the confusion in the final Seconds of the Arizona loss, then you should be willing to give him credit for the way the Offense moved the ball in the final two minutes to get to the two yard line. If the 49ers had a proper organization in place with one person responsible for getting the down and distance info to all the coaches, Martz would not have called the dive play to Robinson.
The win against Washington was similar. After Singletary and Manusky's defense had choked in the final minute and allowed Campbell to drive down the field for the tying TD, it was Martz's passing offense which set up the winning FG.
Let's look at Singletary's record another way. His 4 losses were to Arizona, Seattle, Dallas, and Miami. Nolan's five losses were to Arizona, New Orleans, Philadelphia, New England, and the Giants. Even Singletary's most ardent supporters would have to concede that Nolan's losses were to tougher teams. In fact if the schedule makers had placed the two Ram games in the first half of the season instead of the Giants and New England games, Nolan might not have been fired (thank god for the schedule makers, As unhappy as I am with Singletary, another year with Nolan would have driven me insane).
The fact is the 49ers needed a total housecleaning. Nolan and his entire staff along with McCloughan should have been fired. What we got was pure window dressing. Sure Nolan is gone, but we still have Nolan's stench all over the coaching staff.