2009: Success Of the Mike Singletary Enhancement Effect Remains Key

(Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)

1,300 men are about to embark on a new campaign. It is a struggle between physicality and finesse, between brutish strength and incredible agility. 32 teams will engage in the gridlock on the gridiron, but only one can be crowned as champion.

Okay, so enough of my NFL Films intro voice.

Last year, the San Francisco 49ers began their season with little momentum. A change in offensive coordinators (for the sixth consecutive season) from the plain-Jane Jim Hostler to the mad scientist Mike Martz had many people salivating over possibilities.

But if one thing is true in the NFL, it is this: Possibilities rarely create realities.

Grab hold of your seats, ladies and gentlemen: the 2009 San Francisco 49ers are about to turn possibility into reality.

With a schedule that features four playoff teams from 2008 (Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Tennessee, and Atlanta) hope would seem to be of little supply.

But, wait!

The 49ers play in the weakest division in football, a widely known anomaly known as the NFC West.

If the Cardinals can go 47 years without making it out of the second round of the playoffs, and then make it all the way to the Super Bowl with an 8-8 record, surely anything is possible.

And if it weren’t for two unfortunate endings in games last year (at Arizona and at Miami), the 49ers would have ended 9-7, and been in the playoffs.

This year, the only foreseeable hiccups are those four playoff teams. Every other game is winnable.

With NFC North as competition this season, it is entirely possible for the club to finish at 10-6, or even 11-5 if they steal a win from a playoff team.

With the MSEE (Mike Singletary Enhancement Effect) in full swing, anything is possible.

Vernon Davis has turned from Prima Donna to Model Citizen in a matter of weeks. Ahmad Brooks is changing his talent from being cut to cutting down offenses. Dashan Goldson is finally translating all that ball-hawking skill onto the field instead of off it.

Things are changing at 4949 Centennial Blvd.

Once the premier sports franchise, and just as suddenly, the poster child for what not to do, the San Francisco 49ers are about to come full circle: They are about to take possibility and MAKE it a reality.

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