Bay Area Breakdown: Why Tom Cable Has Been More Succesful Than Mike Singletary

The 2010-2011 season was supposed to be somewhat of a revival for Bay Area football.

For the first time in years, the 49ers were favored to win their division, while the Raiders were expected to be something better than terrible after a successful draft.

The biggest question for the Niners was QB play, but coach Mike Singletary was resolute in his confidence in Alex Smith.

The Raiders finally had two options at QB in Bruce Gradkowski and Jason Campbell. On the other hand, no one knew what to think of Tom Cable.

Nine weeks into the season, we can now examine a large part of the season with 20/20 hindsight.

The Raiders have been one of the surprise teams of the NFL. With a winning record in November, they are poised to make some noise in a playoff run. The 49ers are one of the biggest disappointments this season, perhaps only less disappointing than the Cowboys.

Watching both teams, it's clear what has gone right for the Raiders and wrong for the Niners. Both are young and talented squads, but in the Niners' case, their Achilles heel of QB play, along with serious coaching problems, has come back to bite them, while the Raiders' coaching staff has surprised nearly everyone.

Let's get one thing straight: Neither Tom Cable nor Mike Singletary is a football genius. They are both passionate, animated figures who, in my estimation, are great leaders. In order for them to lead a good team, though, they needed to make good decisions about who to bring in as the primary X's and O's personnel.

In my estimation, those personnel decisions are the biggest reason why the Raiders have succeeded and the 49ers have failed.

The 49ers started the season with Jimmy Raye as the OC. There was much hype around the fact that he represented the first time in years that there was the same OC with the Niners in consecutive seasons. Nobody seemed to notice that with one exception, Raye had made every offense worse the longer he was OC (check his coaching history).

As the 49ers' season began to unravel, he was bashed for, among other things, his lack of creativity and imagination, his reluctance to use more complex formations, his propensity to run the ball up the middle in inappropriate situations, his inability to utilize all of the Niners' offensive weapons and his difficulties calling plays in a coherent and timely manner.

Raye was fired back in September after a hapless loss to the Chiefs. His replacement, Mike Johnson, has little OC experience but has at least shown he is willing to be different. The problem is you can't radically change an offensive system in the middle of the season, so Johnson has been left to do what he can with the current playbook. The jury is still out on his performance, but the 49er offense has appeared marginally better of late.

On the defensive side, Greg Manusky's defense has underperformed. I believe that if the offense didn't lose the time of possession battle every game, the defense wouldn't be gassed by the second half, where they have been weaker so far this season.

With their OT win against the Chiefs, the Raiders have become a relevant team again. Their biggest question mark going into the season, coaching, has been a pleasant surprise. Tom Cable's game-managing skills have been on par with Mike Singletary's. There have been lots of questionable challenges and some not great clock management skills.

Cable has done one thing much better than anyone in the 49ers organization: He found a young, creative OC. Even if it was at Al Davis' insistence, the hiring of Hue Jackson has been a godsend for the Raiders. In yesterday's game against the Chiefs, Jackson called plays in the wildcat, an attempted flea-flicker and lots of deep balls. Were all of these plays good calls? No way. But would you ever see anything like this in the 49ers offense?

The Raiders' defense this year has been good, not great. They have shut down some bad teams, but they've also gotten torched at times. But just like the offense, the defense has been much more fun to watch than their counterparts across the Bay.

This is a story of two coaches on two similar teams—two very similar coaches who had holes to fill when it came to X's and O's. Cable made good decisions and has a dynamic offense and an exciting team with a winning record and a sellout at home. Singletary made bad decisions and now has a boring, conservative and underachieving team with a losing record and waning fan support.

In September Tom Cable was on the hot seat and Mike Singletary was supposed to lead his team into the playoffs. Now it's November and Al Davis might not fire his HC, and Singletary is almost as good as gone at the end of the season.