Mike Singletary Faces the First (and Maybe Last) Must-Win of His Coaching Career

The endgame has come for Mike Singletary, sooner than he or most anyone could've possibly imagined.

At this point, it's fairly cut and dried. Either beat the Denver Broncos on Sunday, or you're gone.

It doesn't matter one whit that it's almost a certainty that starting quarterback Alex Smith will sit this one out after suffering a serious injury to his left (non-throwing) shoulder yesterday when Carolina end Charles Johnson crunched him to the turf on a third quarter sack.

It doesn't matter that the Broncos, with their whiz bang passing game, appear to be a bad matchup for the plodding 49ers secondary.

It doesn't matter that all of England will be paying far more attention—as well they should—to Wayne Rooney, Didier Drogba, Cesc Fábregas and Fernando Torres, or that the folks over here will be far more concerned with the San Francisco Giants and trying to shake off the hangovers from Saturday night’s Halloween party than to concern themselves with the fate of their wretched gridironing squadron.

There are no relevant or interesting excuses left for “Coach Sing.” Win or pay your own way for the flight back home to the colonies, Bucko.

Even if everyone has stopped caring, the 49ers still owe it to their fans to show that they care, that the results of this season have been unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Team president Jed York needs to be able to swallow his pride (never easy for someone of DeBartolo stock) and admit to the world he made a mistake with Singletary.

It’s true that four of their six losses, including yesterday’s, have come by three points or less. Some would argue that’s as attributable to bad luck as bad coaching and if not for random bounces of the ball, the team could just as easily be 5-2 as 1-6.

That’s all well and good, except that close games are a fact of life in the NFL, and they don’t flatter the coach.

You lose by 21, it must be the players. You lose by three, it’s on you. That’s just how it works.

That’s three times now their much-ballyhooed defense, supposedly the strength of their team, have had games on their racquet and given them away.

They couldn’t keep the New Orleans Saints from driving for the winning field goal after the offense scored a late game-tying touchdown and two-point conversion to tie up their home opener against the defending champs on “Monday Night Football.”

It looked like they had the Atlanta Falcons beat on the road after Nate Clements—who was awful against the Panthers rookie receivers, by the way—intercepted Matt Ryan late, but he fumbled away the game and gave Ryan another chance to march down the field for the winning points.

They surrendered three fourth quarter drives to Carolina quarterback Matt Moore, someone who was so terrible the first two weeks of the season that he was benched. The only reason it was even a game late was because Panthers receiver David Gettis dropped a fourth down pass in the end zone when he was wide open one series before his game-tying touchdown.

Defense is supposed to be Singletary’s forte, yet he didn’t see fit to bench Clements, who missed practice most of the week with an ankle injury and who was clearly struggling against Carolina.

Singletary hasn’t figured out a way to cajole his front seven into putting heat on QBs when they absolutely have to.

He has been ineffectual on the unit of the team you would expect him to affect the most.

Offensively, after witnessing that awful display from backup David Carr, where he basically handed the game to the Panthers with a terrible interception on a pass intended for a blanketed Michael Crabtree, Singletary owes Smith an apology for even considering benching him.

The gap between Smith and Carr isn’t as pronounced as the difference between Peyton Manning or Tom Brady and their backups, but it’s not far off. Carr is terrible.

Don’t be surprised if Troy Smith is the starter Sunday against the Broncos, with Singletary’s coaching career on the line. Maybe he can run around and make things happen.   

Carr clearly wasn’t prepared to play upon entering the game, and Singletary deserves blame for not giving him reps during the week. It may be common practice for starting quarterbacks to get all the snaps during practice, but it doesn’t make much sense for a coach who’s been threatening to yank Smith the past two games to not give his Plan B any work.

It was readily apparent that the coaching staff had zero confidence in Carr, but the way the Panthers loaded up to stop Frank Gore, they had to call a bootleg, a play-action pass, something.

Running Gore up the gut in that situation was tantamount to taking a knee three times. Singletary played not to lose up 20-13, and he lost. Again. The team keeps losing games in similar fashion over and over, yet Singletary never learns anything, never changes anything, never deviates from his losing formula.

Gore had 23 of their 36 “touches” on offense. He had 19 carries, while backups Brian Westbrook and Anthony Dixon continued to rot on the bench. Every week, the coaches talk about getting them move involved, perhaps fantasizing of 28-point fourth quarter leads that will never come.

Rookie right tackle Anthony Davis clearly struggles on the road, but he never gets help and Smith gets pancaked. No running backs chipping, no double team blocks with a tight end. It’s Davis on an island, and he’s been stranded.

It’s an offense philosophically designed to get Gore and Smith killed and one that willfully rejects the concept of a two-score lead.

Singletary professes not to be involved in the game planning, but his fingerprints and meddling are in evidence everywhere.

The 49ers have a bye week coming up. If (and when) they lose to Denver, the time will be right to dismiss Singletary.

Hire defensive coordinator Greg Manusky on an interim basis, with the understanding that offensive coordinator Mike Johnson will have total freedom to run the offense the way he sees fit, and with the mandate of using Gore less.

On the surface, hiring another defensive coach after Singletary and Mike Nolan seems like the worst idea in the world, but Manusky is considerably more qualified to be a head coach than Singletary was at the time.

He’s also smart enough to understand that he’ll just be keeping the seat warm for a big name hire in 2011, and that any positive impression he makes will go a long way toward staying on staff with the new guy.

The 49ers need to make the move. The Singletary jokes just aren’t funny anymore, and the fans deserve better.