San Francisco 49ers: So Bad They Have Driven Me To Think

It’s always dangerous, or at least asinine, to suggest that anyone learns anything during a football game.

After all, diversions such as these were created so people could shut their brains off and forget their troubles and concerns for a few hours. In general thinking and football don’t mix, and the voluminous consumption of beer at the games, and the price paid for them, suggests that most spectators of the game are actively waging war against their own brain cells.

Even for those inside the game, the people whose livelihoods are determined by the scoreboard, thinking is greatly discouraged.

San Francisco 49ers Defensive Coordinator Greg Manusky, for example, told reporters yesterday that he’s always hesitant to give his linebackers too much information during a game.

“I don’t want them thinking,” Manusky declared. “Shoot, you don’t want to think out there, you just want to tackle the guy with the ball.”

Okay then.

However, with all that being said, I confess that a couple of stray thoughts did leak into my consciousness during last Sunday’s tilt between the winless hometown Niners and the injury ravaged Eagles of Philadelphia, aside from the usual, “Are they paying me enough to write about this?”

One thought was that Eagles head whistle Andy Reid tried very, very hard, despite the obvious advantages he had at the offensive skill positions, to keep the 49ers in the game for the better part of three hours.

As someone who follows the Iggles because of some pathological character flaw, I continue to be morbidly fascinated by Reid, who’s been at this for 11 years, yet still manages the clock with the calculated, discerning precision of Pablo Sandoval at the plate.

You don’t care about Reid or the Eagles though, and bully to you for that. You want to know about the 49ers. Your silly, troubled, comically inept 49ers.

Well, after their latest setback—27-24 to the birds—dropped them to 0-5, I realized something about their coach, Mike Singletary, and his quarterback, Alex Smith.

The likelihood of either of these men leading an NFL team past the first round of the playoffs at any point during their careers is remote in the extreme.

The chance of them doing it as a tandem, on the other hand, is impossible.

These guys need a divorce, a change of scenery and a 2,500 mile restraining order and they need one yesterday.

None of these above nuggets of inspiration may seem particularly illuminating. I’ll grant you that. 

So here’s a few more…

1. The 49ers have far more talent on offense than defense.

Consider the evidence. Smith, as we all know, was the first overall pick of the 2005 draft. He’s hardly alone in the huddle when it comes to pedigree, however. Tight end Vernon Davis was the sixth pick of 2006, while receiver Michael Crabtree was the 10^th pick last year. Third receiver Ted Ginn was taken ninth by the Miami Dolphins in 2007. Running back Frank Gore, was only a third-round pick in 2005, but he’s a two-time Pro Bowler.

On the offensive line you have, left to right, tackle Joe Staley (28^th in 2007), guard Mike Iupati (17^th in 2010), center David Baas (33^rd in 2005), guard Chilo Rachal (39^th in 2008) and tackle Anthony Davis (11^th in 2010).

The 49ers have been very awful for very long, and have used that awfulness to stockpile offensive assets. Baas is 29. The rest are 26 or younger.

Now consider the defense. There are five 1st-rounders in the starting eleven, only two of which (linebackers Patrick Willis and Manny Lawson) the 49ers personally drafted. Linebacker Takeo Spikes, corner Nate Clements and end Justin Smith were all signed in free agency and are older than 30 and in the downside of their careers.  

Two other members of the secondary, corner Shawntae Spencer and safety Taylor Mays, are former second-round picks. The other four starters are fourth-rounders or worse and have no Pro Bowls on their resumes.

2. The defense consistently outperforms the offense because that’s the side of the ball where their best player –Willis– happens to play, but also because under Manusky, they’re far better coached.

Manusky is in his fourth year at his current post, which has allowed him to build continuity with the majority of his players. Virtually all of his starters have been with him since he joined the team in 2007, and it has allowed the defense to build a bond and some chemistry.

Most importantly, it’s allowed Manusky to assess, without Singletary’s interference, the strengths and weaknesses of each player. He knows what they can do, and more importantly, what they can’t.

Manusky doesn’t put his guys in a position to fail or be embarrassed—for example Clements and Spencer, who are both on the slow side for starting corners, are rarely put on islands—and because of this his guys trust him, far more than they trust Singletary, who is not involved in game planning.

3. Mike Johnson, the new offensive coordinator, doesn’t trust Smith any more than the previous one, Jimmy Raye did.

Against the Eagles, Smith came out smoking, completing his first six passes for 73 yards and a touchdown. These passes, which came on 2nd and 14, 3rd and 10, 3rd and 8, 2nd and 7 (goal), 3rd and 8, and 3rd and 1, were not quarterback friendly down-and-distance circumstances, yet Smith made it work.

Now contrast that with the first downs that preceded them. Eight runs by Gore, for a total of five yards, and including a lost fumble. The Eagles were run blitzing like crazy and stacking the line on first downs, yet Johnson still sent Gore into the teeth of their defense, with negligible results.

13 of the first 19 49ers plays from scrimmage were runs, for 26 yards, which works out to two yards per pop for you math majors at home. Smith’s six passes averaged more than a dozen yards per.

So why was Johnson so conservative early in the game, despite Smith’s scorching start?

“There needs to be a better mixture of run-pass,” he conceded, “but the bottom line is to be efficient on first-down and have a four-yard-plus play most of the time in the game.”

And there’s your smoking gun. Johnson trusts Gore to get four yards against an eight man front more than he trusts Smith to throw for the same yards against a defense keying on Gore. That’s your offensive philosophy in a nutshell, and it is flawed.

You can argue that Smith has not earned any trust whatsoever, but an NFL offense cannot function in 2010 when coaches willfully sabotage and stack the deck against their own quarterback.

When Smith is put into situations where he constantly has to pass on 2nd and 10 or 3rd and 8, it’s akin to hitting on “16” in blackjack. You might pull out a lucky card once or twice, but eventually the odds will catch up with you.

If Smith’s coaches don’t trust him enough to put him in a position to succeed, then they should play someone they do trust. No quarterback can excel over the course of a whole game when put under such constraints.

4. Smith is book smart but street dumb.

Just because Smith’s coaches fail him, it doesn’t mean he’s blameless. You meet and talk to him, and for all intensive purposes, he sure seems like an intelligent guy. He earned his Bachelor’s degree at Utah in two years and he scored a 40 on the Wonderlic test, so it’s fairly obvious the guy is not intimidated by books or classrooms.

Unfortunately, his smarts don’t translate onto the field. He doesn’t make decisions quickly enough, especially when blitzed or hurried. The choices he winds up making are often disastrous.

Even worse, he’s not bright enough to stand up for himself, even when it’s in his own—and his team’s—best interests.

Following a horrendous fumble that turned a 17-10 deficit into 24-10, Singletary tore into Smith on the sidelines, looking for some kind of response.

He got none.

After a subsequent three-and-out, he lit into his quarterback some more and told backup David Carr to warm up.

It seemed that Singletary was singling Smith out, despite the fact that Gore had coughed up two fumbles; that Johnson had called a conservative game up to that point, and the defense had been so-so against an Eagles team with a shaky offensive line and playing with backup quarterback Kevin Kolb.

After the game, it came out that Singletary told Smith, “A great quarterback would never quit. A great quarterback would never let a coach take him out.”

Obviously Singletary was looking to be challenged, yet Smith missed his cue to yell back. It wasn’t until Davis told him what Singletary wanted that Smith confronted him and asked to go back into the game.

Supposedly one of the main reasons former coach Mike Nolan chose Smith over Aaron Rodgers in 2005 was that as an insecure first-time head coach, he wanted an automaton at quarterback, someone who would follow the game plan to the letter and who wouldn’t question his authority.

Rodgers, who has a wild hair in him (much like his Green Bay predecessor), couldn’t be the guy Nolan wanted.

Smith was, to his detriment—and Nolan’s, as it turned out.

5. The offensive players don’t respect the coaches.

When Raye was let go, the players struggled to suppress their smiles in the locker room. Smith certainly was unmoved by it.

Crabtree openly complains about the offense during his weekly sessions with the press, without a reprimand or consequences.

Singletary stood idly by while Crabtree blew off preseason and lollygagged during training camp. Eventually Davis did what his coach wouldn’t do and called out the diva receiver, but by then it was too late and his lack of preparation hurt the team deeply in their opening loss at Seattle.

Singletary also failed to address Raye’s well-chronicled play-calling difficulties until it was too late, even though many of those problems crept up in the preseason as well.

But it was Singletary’s attempted benching of Smith, even if it was a set-up, which really angered many of the players, and they were shy about letting it be known.

Not only did the volatile Davis—one of the team captains—intervene, but so did backup guard Adam Snyder. In the locker room both Gore and receiver Josh Morgan pleaded Smith’s case.

You get the sense that more and more the offense is taking on a Lord of the Flies mentality, because they’re feeling the coaches, Singletary in particular, are doing them more harm than good. They’re waiting for Smith to speak out, but not only is he not wired that way, he doesn’t want to appear like a whiner and malcontent on an 0-5 team.

So instead they all suffer in this mess, largely not of their making.

Is there any way they can pull themselves out of their nosedive?

It’s best not to think about it.

The Pick: 49ers 23, Raiders 16 (Record 0-5)